
aass2^2_4- 



Book__ 



o _. . 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/historicalnights01saba 



The Historical Nights' 
Entertainment 






BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

ROMANCES : 

THE TAVERN KNIGHT 

THE SHAME OF MOTLEY 

BARDEIyYS THE MAGNIFICENT 

THE TRAMPI.ING OF THE I.II.IES 

I,OVE-AT-ARMS 

ST MARTIN'S SUMMER 

THE LION'S SKIN 

THE JUSTICE OF THE DUKE 

THE GATES OF DOOM 

THE STROLLING SAINT 

THE SEA-HAWK 

THE BANNER OF THE BULI< 

THE SNARE 

HISTORICAL ESSAYS : 

THE LIFE OF CESARE BORGIA 

TORQUEMADA AND THE SPANISH INQUISITION 



The Historical Nights' 
Entertainment 

By Rafael Saba tint 



SECOND SER/ES 



London: Hutchinson & Co. 

Paternoster Row, E.C. 






-> 



TO 
DAVID WHITELAW 

My dear David, 

Since the narratives collected here as well as in 
the preceding volume under the title of The Historical 
Nights' Entertainment — narratives originally pubHshed 
in The Premier Magazine, which you so ably edit — 
owe their being to your suggestion, it is fitting that some 
acknowledgment of the fact should be made. To what 
is hardly less than a duty, allow me to add the pleasure 
of dedicating to you, in earnest of my friendship and 
esteem, not merely this volume, but the work of which this 
volume is the second. 

Sincerely yours, 

Rafael Sabatini. 
LondoUy June, 191 9* 



Preface 



The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of 
The Historical Nights' Entertainment, issued in 
December of 191 7, has encouraged me to prepare the 
second series here assembled. 

As in the case of the narratives that made up the first 
volume, I set out again with the same ambitious aim of 
adhering scrupulously in every instance to actual, recorded 
facts ; and once again I find it desirable at the outset to 
reveal how far the achievement may have fallen short of 
the admitted aim. 

On the whole, I have to confess to having allowed myself 
perhaps a wider latitude, and to having taken greater 
liberties than was the case with the essays constituting 
the previous collection. This, however, applies, where 
appHcable, to the parts rather than to the whole. 

The only entirely apocryphal narrative here included is 
the first — " The Absolution." This is one of those 
stories which, if resting upon no sufficient authority to 
compel its acceptance, will, nevertheless, resist all attempts 
at final refutation, having its roots at least in the soil of 
fact. It is given in the rather discredited Portuguese 
chronicles of Acenheiro, and finds place, more or less as 
related here, in Duarte Galvao's " Chronicle of Affonso 
Henriques," whence it was taken by the Portuguese 
historical writer, Alexandre Herculano, to be included in 
his " Lendas e Narrativas." If it is to be relegated to 

5 



6 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

the Limbo of the ben trovato, at least I esteem it to afford 
us a precious glimpse of the naive spirit of the age in which 
it is set, and find in that my justification for including it. 

The next to require apology is " His Insolence of 
Buckingham," but only in so far as the incident of the 
diamond studs is concerned. The remainder of the nar- 
rative, the character of Buckingham, the details of his 
embassy to Paris, and the particulars of his audacious 
courtship of Anne of Austria, rest upon unassailable 
evidence. I would have omitted the very apocryphal 
incident of the studs, but that I considered it of pecuHar 
interest as revealing the source of the main theme of one 
of the most famous historical romances ever written — 
" The Three Musketeers." I give the story as related by 
La Rochefoucauld in his " Memoirs," whence Alexandre 
Dumas culled it that he might turn it to such excellent 
romantic account. In La Rochefoucauld's narrative it 
is the painter Gerbier who, in a far less heroic manner, 
plays the part assigned by Dumas to d'Artagnan, and it 
is the Countess of CarHsle who carries out the poHtical 
theft which Dumas attributes to Milady. For the rest, 
I do not invite you to attach undue credit to it, which is 
not, however, to say that I account it wholly false. 

In the case of " The Hermosa Fembra " I confess to 
having blended together into one single narrative two 
historical episodes closely connected in time and place. 
Susan's daughter was, in fact, herself the betrayer of her 
father, and it was in penitence for that unnatural act that 
she desired her skull to be exhibited as I describe. Into 
the story of Susan's daughter I have woven that of another 
New-Christian girl, who, Hke the Hermosa Fembra, had 
taken a CastiHan lover — in this case a youth of the house 
of Guzman. This youth was driven into concealment 
in circumstances more or less as I describe them. He over- 
heard the judaizing of several New-Christians there 
asscmbledj and bore word of it at once to Ojeda. The 



Preface 



two episodes were separated in fact by an interval of 
three years, and the first afforded Ojeda a strong argument 
for the institution of the Holy Office in Seville. Between 
the two there are many points of contact, and each supplies 
what the other lacks to make an interesting narrative 
having for background the introduction of the Inquisition 
to Castile. The denouement I supply is entirely fictitious, 
and the introduction of Torquemada is quite arbitrary. 
Ojeda was the inquisitor who dealt with both cases. But 
if there I stray into fiction, at least I claim to have sketched 
a faithful portrait of the Grand Inquisitor as I know him 
from fairly exhaustive researches into his life and times. 

The story of the False Demetrius is here related from 
the point of view of my adopted solution of what is gener- 
ally regarded as a historical mystery. The mystery lies, 
of course, in the man's identity. He has been held by 
some to have been the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otropiev, 
by others to have been a son of Stephen Bathory, King 
of Poland. I am not aware that the theory that he was 
both at one and the same time has ever been put forward, 
and whilst admitting that it is speculative, yet I claim 
that no other would appear so aptly to fit all the known 
facts of his career or to shed light upon its mysteries. 

Undoubtedly I have allowed myself a good deal of 
licence and speculation in treating certain unwitnessed 
scenes in " The Barren Wooing." But the theory that I 
develop in it to account for the miscarriage of the matri- 
monial plans of Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley 
seems to me to be not only very fully warranted by de 
Quadra's correspondence, but the only theory that will 
convincingly explain the events. Elizabeth, as I show, 
was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of 
Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and 
actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, 
my reading of the transaction is as given here. The most 
dam.ning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own 



8 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's 
murder to the effect that Lady Robert was " already dead, 
or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of that 
unfortunate lady has been accepted as positive evidence 
that the Queen was a party to the crime at Cumnor, which 
was to set her lover free to marry again. Far from that, 
however, I account it positive proof of Elizabeth's inno- 
cence of any such part in the deed. Elizabeth was far 
too crafty and clear-sighted not to realize how her words 
must incriminate her afterwards if she knew that the 
murder of Lady Robert was projected. She must have 
been merely repeating what Dudley himself had told her ; 
and what he must have told her — and she believed— was 
that his wife was at the point of a natural death. Similarly, 
Dudley would not have told her this, unless his aim had 
been to procure his wife's removal by means which would 
admit of a natural interpretation. Difficulties encoun- 
tered, much as I relate them — and for which there is abun- 
dant evidence — drove his too-zealous agents to rather 
desperate lengths, and thus brought suspicion, not only 
upon the guilty Dudley, but also upon the innocent 
Queen. The manner of Amy's murder is pure conjecture ; 
but it should not be far from what actually took place. 
The possibility of an accident — extraordinarily and suspi- 
ciously opportune for Dudley as it would have been — 
could not be altogether ruled out but for the further 
circumstance that Lady Robert had removed everybody 
from Cumnor on that day. To what can this point — unless 
we accept an altogether incredible chain of coincidence — 
but to some such plotting as I here suggest ? 

In the remaining six essays in this volume the liberties 
taken with the absolute facts are so slight as to require no 
apology or comment. 

R. S 
London^ June, 1919- 



Contents 

I. THE ABSOLUTION Page ii 

Affonso Henriques, First King of Portugal 

^ II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS „ 33 

Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of 
Ivan the Terrible 

' III. THE HERMOSA FEMBRA „ 55 

An Episode of the Inquisition in Seville 

IV. THE PASTRY-COOK OF MADRIGAL „ 83 

The Story of the False Sebastian of 
Portugal 

V. THE END OF THE VER7 GALANT „ 115 
The Assassination of Henry IV 

VI. THE BARREN WOOING „ i43 

The Murder of Amy Robsart 

VII. SIR JUDAS „ 173 

The Betrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh 

VIII. HIS INSOLENCE OF BUCKINGHAM „ 199 

George VilHers' Courtship of Anne of 
Austria 

IX. THE PATH OF EXILE „ 223 

The Fall of Lord Clarendon 

X. THE TRAGEDY OF HERRENHAUSEN „ 249 

Count Philip Konigsmark and the 
Princess Sophia Dorothea 

XI. THE TYRANNICIDE „ 273 

Charlotte Corday and Jean Paul Marat 
9 



/. The Absolutio7i 

Affonso Henriques, first King of Porhtgal 



/. The Absolution 



IN 1093 the Moors of the Almoravide dynasty, under the 
Caliph Yusuf, swept irresistibly upwards into the 
Iberian Peninsula, recapturing Lisbon and Santarem in 
the west, and pushing their conquest as far as the river 
Mondego. 

To meet this revival of Mohammedan power, Alfonso VI. 
of Castile summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his 
aid. Among the knights who answered the call was 
Count Henry of Burgundy (grandson of Robert, first Duke 
of Burgundy) to whom Alfonso gave his natural daughter 
Theresa in marriage, together with the Counties of Oporto 
and Coimbra, with the title of Count of Portugal. 

That is the first chapter of the history of Portugal. 

Count Henry fought hard to defend his southern fron- 
tiers from the incursion of the Moors until his death in 1 1 14. 
Thereafter his widow Theresa became Regent of Portugal 
during the minority of their son, Alfonso Henriques. A 
woman of great energy, resource and ambition, she success- 
fully waged war against the Moors, and in other ways laid 
the foundations upon which her son was to build the 
Kingdom of Portugal. But her passionate infatuation for 
one of her knights— Don Fernando Peres de Trava — and 
the excessive honours she bestowed upon him, made 

13 



14 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

enemies for her in the new state, and estranged her from 
her son. 

In 1127 Alfonso VII. of Castile invaded Portugal, com- 
pelling Theresa to recognize him as her suzerain. But 
Affonso Henriques, now aged seventeen — and declared 
by the citizens of the capital to be of age and competent 
to reign — incontinently refused to recognize the submission 
made by his mother, and in the following year assembled 
an army for the purpose of expelling her and her lover 
from the country. The warlike Theresa resisted until 
defeated in the battle of San Mamede and taken prisoner. 



He was little more than a boy, although four years were 
sped already since, as a mere lad of fourteen, he had kept 
vigil throughout the night over his arms in the Cathedral 
of Zamora, preparatory to receiving the honour of knight- 
hood at the hands of his cousin, Alfonso VII. of Castile. 
Yet already he was looked upon as the very pattern of what 
a Christian knight should be, worthy son of the father who 
kad devoted his Hfe to doing battle against the Infidel, 
wheresoever he might be found. He was well-grown and 
tall, and of a bodily strength that is almost a byword 
to this day in that Portugal of which he was the real founder 
and first king. He was skilled beyond the common wont 
in all knightly exercises of arms and horsemanship, and 
equipped with far more learning — though much of it was 
ill-digested, as this story will serve to show— than the 
twelfth century considered useful or even proper in a 
knight. And he was at least true to his time in that he 
combined a fervid piety with a weakness of the flesh 
and an impetuous arrogance that was to bring him under 



The Absolution 15 



the ban of greater excommunication at the very outset of 
his reign. 

It happened that his imprisonment of his mother was not 
at all pleasing in the sight of Rome. Dona Theresa had 
powerful friends, who so used their influence at the Vatican 
on her behalf that the Holy Father — conveniently ignoring 
the provocation she had given and the scandalous, un- 
motherly conduct of which she had been guilty — came to 
consider the behaviour of the Infante of Portugal as repre- 
hensibly unfilial, and commanded him to deliver Dona 
Theresa at once from duress. 

This Papal order, backed by a threat of excommunica- 
tion in the event of disobedience, was brought to the 
young prince by the Bishop of Coimbra, whom he counted 
among his friends. 

Affonso Henriques, ever impetuous and quick to anger, 
flushed scarlet when he heard that uncompromising 
message. His dark eyes smouldered as they considered 
the aged prelate. 

" You come here to bid me let loose again upon this land 
of Portugal that author of strife, to deliver over the people 
once more to the oppression of the Lord of Trava ? " he 
asked. " And you tell me that unless by obeying this 
command I am false to the duty I owe this country, you will 
launch the curse of Rome against me ? You tell me this ? " 

The bishop, deeply stirred, torn between his duty to the 
Holy See and his affection for his prince, bowed his head and 
wrung his hands. " What choice have I ? " he asked, on 
a quavering note. 

" I raised you from the dust." Thunder was rumbling 
in the prince's voice. " Myself I placed the episcopal ring 
upon your finger." 



i6 The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

" My lord, my lord ! Could I forget ? All that I have I 
owe to you — save only my soul, which I owe to God ; my 
faith, which I owe to Christ ; and my obedience, which I 
owe to our Holy Father the Pope." 

The prince considered him in silence, mastering his 
passionate, impetuous nature. *' Go," he growled at last. 

The prelate bowed his head, his eyes not daring to meet 
his prince's. 

" God keep you, lord," he almost sobbed, and so went out. 

But though stirred by his affection for the prince to 
whom he owed so much, though knowing in his inmost 
heart that Aifonso Henriques was in the right, the Bishop 
of Coimbra did not swerve from his duty to Rome, which 
was as plain as it was unpalatable. Betimes next morning 
word was brought to Aifonso Henriques in the Alcazar 
of Coimbra that a parchment was nailed to the door of the 
Cathedral, setting forth his excommunication, and that the 
Bishop — either out of fear or out of sorrow — had left the 
city, journeying northward towards Oporto, 

Aifonso Henriques passed swiftly from incredulity to 
anger ; then almost as swiftly came to a resolve, which was 
as mad and harebrained as could have been expected from 
a lad in his eighteenth year who held the reins of power. 
Yet by its very directness and its superb ignoring of all 
obstacles, legal and canonical, it was invested with a 
certain wild sanity. 

In full armour, a white cloak simply embroidered in gold 
at the edge and knotted at the shoulder, he rode to the 
Cathedral, attended by his half-brother Pedro Aifonso, 
and two of his knights, Emigio Moniz and Sancho Nunes. 
There on the great iron-studded doors he found, as he had 
been warned, the Roman parchment pronouncing him 



The Absolution 17 



accursed, its sonorous Latin periods set forth in a fine round 
clerkly hand. 

He swung down from his great horse and clanked up the 
Cathedral steps, his attendants following. He had for 
witnesses no more than a few loiterers, who had paused at 
sight of their prince. 

The interdict had so far attracted no attention, for in 
the twelfth century the art of letters was a mystery to 
which there were few initiates. 

Affonso Henriques tore the sheepskin from its nails, and 
crumpled it in his hand ; then he passed into the Cathedral, 
and thence came out presently into the cloisters. Overhead 
a bell was clanging by his orders, summoning the chapter. 

To the Infante, waiting there in the sun-drenched close, 
came presently the canons, austere, aloof, majestic in their 
unhurried progress through the fretted cloisters, with flow- 
ing garments and hands tucked into their wide sleeves 
before them. In a semi-circle they arrayed themselves 
before him, and waited impassively to learn his will. Over- 
head the bell had ceased. 

Affonso Henriques wasted no words. 

" I have summoned you," he announced, " to command 
that you proceed to the election of a bishop." 

A rustle stirred through the priestly throng. The canons 
looked askance at the prince and at one another. Then 
one of them spoke. 

" Habemus episcopum," he said gravely, and several 
instantly made chorus : " We have a bishop." 

The eyes of the young sovereign kindled. " You are 
wrong," he told them. " You had a bishop, but he is 
here no longer. He has deserted his see, after publishing 
this shameful thing." And he held aloft the crumpled 

2 



i8 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

interdict. "As I am a God-fearing, Christian knight, I 
will not live under this ban. Since the bishop who ex- 
communicated me is gone, you will at once elect another 
in his place who shall absolve me." 

They stood before him, silent and impassive, in their 
priestly dignity, and in their assurance that the law was 
on their side. 

" Well ? " the boy growled at them. 

" Habemus episcopum," droned a voice again. 

" Amen," boomed in chorus through the cloisters. 

" I tell you that your bishop is gone," he insisted, his 
voice quivering now with anger, " and I tell you that he 
shall not return, that he shall never set foot again within 
my city of Coimbra. Proceed you therefore at once to the 
election of his successor." 

" Lord," he was answered coldly by one of them, " no 
such election is possible or lawful." 

" Do you dare stand before my face, and tell me this ? " 
he roared, infuriated by their cold resistance. He flung 
out an arm in a gesture of terrible dismissal. *' Out of my 
sight, you proud and evil men ! Back to your cells, to 
await my pleasure. Since in your arrogant, stiff-necked 
pride you refuse to do my will, you shall receive the bishop 
I shall myself select." 

He was so terrific in his rage that they dared not tell 
him that he had no power, prince though he might be, to 
make such an election. They bowed to him, ever impas- 
sively, and with their hands still folded, unhurried as they 
had come, they now turned and filed past him in departure. 

He watched them with scowHng brows and tightened 
lips, Moniz and Nunes silent behind him. Suddenly those 
dark, watchful eyes of his were held by the last figure of al] 



The Absolution 19 



in that austere procession — a tall, gaunt young man, whose 
copper-coloured skin and hawk-featured face proclaimed 
his Moorish blood. Instantly, maliciously, it flashed 
through the prince's boyish mind how he might make of 
this man an instrument to humble the pride of that insolent 
clergy. He raised his hand, and beckoned the cleric to him. 
" What is your name ? " he asked him. 
" I am called Zuleyman, lord," he was answered, and 
the name confirmed — -where, indeed, no confirmation was 
necessary — the fellow's Moorish origin. 

Affonso Henriques laughed. It would be an excellent 
jest to thrust upon these arrogant priests, who refused to 
appoint a bishop of their choice, a bishop who was little 
better than a blackamoor. 

" Don Zuleyman," said the prince, " I name you Bishop 
of Coimbra in the room of the rebel who has fled. You 
will prepare to celebrate High Mass this morning, and to 
pronounce my absolution." 

The Christianized Moor fell back a step, his face paling 
under its copper skin to a sickly grey. In the background, 
the hindmost members of the retreating clerical procession 
turned and stood at gaze, angered and scandalized by what 
they heard, which was indeed a thing beyond belief. 

'' Ah no, my lord ! Ah no ! " Don Zuleyman was falter- 
ing. " Not that ! " 

The prospect terrified him, and in his agitation he had 
recourse to Latin. " Domine, non sum dignus," he cried, 
and beat his breast. 

But the uncompromising Affonso Henriques gave him 
back Latin for Latin. 

" Dixi — I have spoken ! " he answered sternly. " Do 
not fail me in obedience, on your life." And on that he 

2* 



20 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

clanked out again with his attendants, well-pleased with 
his morning's work. 

As he had disposed with boyish, almost irresponsible 
rashness, and in flagrant contravention of all canon law, 
so it fell out. Don Zuleyman, wearing the bishop's robes 
and the bishop's mitre, intoned the Kyrie Eleison before 
noon that day in the Cathedral of Coimbra, and pronounced 
the absolution of the Infante of Portugal, who knelt so 
submissively and devoutly before him. 

Affonso Henriques was very pleased with himself. He 
made a jest of the affair, and invited his intimates to laugh 
with him. But Emigio Moniz and the elder members of 
his council refused to laugh. They looked with awe upon 
a deed that went perilously near to sacrilege, and implored 
him to take their own sober view of the thing he had done. 

" By the bones of St. James ! " he cried. " A prince 
is not to be brow-beaten by a priest." 

Such a view in the twelfth century was little short of 
revolutionary. The chapter of the Cathedral of Coimbra 
held the converse opinion that priests were not to be brow- 
beaten by a prince, and set themselves to make Affonso 
Henriques realize this to his bitter cost. They dispatched 
to Rome an account of his unconscionable, high-handed, 
incredible sacrilege, and invited Rome to administer con- 
dign spiritual flagellation upon this errant child of Mother 
Church. Rome made haste to vindicate her authority, 
and dispatched a legate to the recalcitrant, audacious boy 
who ruled in Portugal. But the distance being consider- 
able, and means of travel inadequate and slow, it was not 
until Don Zuleyman had presided in the See of Coimbra 
for a full two months that the Papal Legate made his 
appearance in Affonso Henriques' capital. 



The Absolution 21 

A very splendid Prince of the Church was Cardinal 
Corrado, the envoy dispatched by Pope Honorius II., 
full armed with apostolic weapons to reduce the rebellious 
Infante of Portugal into proper subjection. 

His approach was heralded by the voice of rumour. 
Alfonso Henriques heard of it without perturbation. His 
conscience at ease in the absolution which he had wrung 
from Mother Church after his own fashion, he was entirely 
absorbed in preparations for a campaign against the Moors 
which was to widen his dominions. Therefore when at 
length the thunderbolt descended, it fell — so far as he was 
concerned — from a sky entirely clear. 

It was towards dusk of a summer evening when the 
legate, in a Htter slung in line between two mules, entered 
Coimbra. He was attended by two nephews, Giannino 
and Pierluigi da Corrado, both patricians of Rome, and a 
little knot of servants. EmpanopHed in his sacred office, 
the cardinal had no need of the protection of men-at-arms 
upon a journey through god-fearing lands. 

He was borne straight to the old Moorish palace where 
the Infante resided, and came upon him there amid a 
numerous company in the great pillared hall. Against a 
background of battle trophies, livid weapons, implements 
of war, and suits of mail both Saracen and Christian, with 
which the bare walls were hung, moved a gaily-clad, courtly 
gathering of nobles and their women-folk, when the great 
cardinal, clad from head to foot in scarlet, entered un- 
announced. 

Laughter rippled into silence. A hush descended upon 
the company, which stood now at gaze, considering the 
imposing and unbidden guest. Slowly the legate, followed 
by the two Roman youths, advanced down the hall, the 



22 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

soft pad of his slippered feet and the rustle of his silken 
robes being at first the only sound. On he came, until he 
stood before the shallow dais, where in a massively carved 
chair sat the Infante of Portugal, mistrustfully observing 
him. Affonso Henriques scented here an enemy, an ally 
of his mother's, the bearer of a fresh declaration of hostili- 
ties. Therefore of deliberate purpose he kept his seat, as 
if to stress the fact that here he was the master. 

" Lord Cardinal," he greeted the legate, " be welcome to 
my land of Portugal." 

The cardinal bowed stiffly, resentful of this reception. 
In his long journey across the Spains, princes and nobles 
had flocked to kiss his hand, and bend the knee before him, 
seeking his blessing. Yet this mere boy, beardless save 
for a silky down about his firm young cheeks, retained his 
seat and greeted him with no more submissiveness than if 
he had been the envoy of some temporal prince. 

" I am the representative of our Holy Father," he 
announced, in a voice of stern reproof. " I am from Rome, 
with these my well-beloved nephews." 

" From Rome ? " quoth Affonso Henriques. For all 
his length of limb and massive thews he could be impish 
upon occasion. He was impish now. " Although no good 
has ever yet come to me from Rome, you make me hopeful. 
His Holiness will have heard of the preparations I am 
making for a war against the Infidel that shall carry the 
Cross where now stands the Crescent, and sends me, 
perhaps, a gift of gold to assist me in this holy 
work." 

The mockery of it stung the legate sharply. His sallow, 
ascetic face empurpled. 

" It is not gold I bring you," he answered, " but a lesson 



The Absolution 23 



in the faith which you would seem to have forgotten. I 
am come to teach you your Christian duty, and to require 
of you immediate reparation of the sacrilegious wrongs 
you have done. The Holy Father demands of you the 
instant re-instatement of the Bishop of Coimbra, whom you 
have driven out with threats of violence, and the degrada- 
tion of the cleric you blasphemously appointed Bishop in 
his stead." 

" And is that all ? " quoth the boy, in a voice dangerously 
quiet. 

" No." Fearless in his sense of right, the legate towered 
before him. " It is demanded of you further that you 
instantly release the lady, your mother, from the unjust 
confinement in which you hold her." 

" That confinement is not unjust, as all here can witness," 
the Infante answered. *' Rome may believe it, because 
lies have been carried to Rome. Dona Theresa's life was 
a scandal, her regency an injustice to my people. She and 
the infamous Lord of Trava lighted the torch of civil war 
in these dominions. Learn here the truth, and carry it to 
Rome. Thus shall you do worthy service." 

But the prelate was obstinate and proud. 

" That is not the answer that our Holy Father awaits." 

" It is the answer that I send." 

" Rash, rebellious youth, beware ! " The cardinal's 
anger flamed up, and his voice swelled. " I come armed 
with spiritual weapons of destruction. Do not abuse 
the patience of Mother Church, or you shall feel the full 
weight of her wrath released against you." 

Exasperated, Affonso Henriques bounded to his feet» 
his face livid now with passion, his eyes ablaze. 

" Out ! Away ! " he cried. '* Go, my lord, and go 



24 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

quickly, or as God watches us I will add here and now yet 
another sacrilege to those of which you accuse me." 

The prelate gathered his ample robes about him. If 
pale, he was entirely calm once more. With stern dignity, 
he bowed to the angry youth, and so departed, but with 
such outward impassivity that it would have been difficult 
to say with whom lay the victory. If Affonso Henriques 
thought that night that he had conquered, morning was 
to shatter the illusion. 

He was awakened early by a chamberlain at the urgent 
instances of Emigio Moniz, who was demanding immediate 
audience. Affonso Henriques sat up in bed, and bade him 
to be admitted. 

The elderly knight and faithful counsellor came in, 
treading heavily. His swarthy face was overcast, his 
mouth set in stern Hues under its grizzled beard. 

" God keep you, lord," was his greeting, so lugubriously 
delivered as to sound like a pious, but rather hopeless, wish. 

" And you, Emigio," answered him the Infante. " You 
are early astir. What is the cause ? " 

" 111 tidings, lord." He crossed the room, unlatched 
and flung wide a windoAv. " Listen," he bade the prince. 

On the still morning air arose a sound like the drone of 
some gigantic hive, or of the sea when the tide is making. 
Affonso Henriques recognized it for the murmur of the 
multitude. 

" What does it mean ? " he asked, and thrust a sinewy 
leg from the bed. 

" It means that the Papal Legate has done all that he 
threatened, and something more. He has placed your 
city of Coimbra under a ban of excommunication. The 
churches are closed, and until the ban is lifted no priest 



The Absolution 



25 



will be found to baptize, many, shrive or perform any other 
sacrament of Holy Church. The people are stricken with 
terror, knowing that they share the curse with you. They 
are massing below at the gates of the alcazar, demanding 
to see you that they may implore you to lift from them the 
horror of this excommunication." 

Aflonso Henriques had come to his feet by now, and he 
stood there staring at the old knight, his face blenched, his 
stout heart clutched by fear of these impalpable, blasting 
weapons that were being used against him. 

" My God ! " he groaned, and asked : " What must I do ?" 

Moniz was preternaturally grave. " It is of the first 
importance that the people should be pacified." 

" But how ? " 

** There is one way only — by a promise that you will 
submit to the will of the Holy Father, and by penance seek 
absolution for yourself and your city." 

A red flush swept into the young cheeks that had been 
so pale. 

" What ? " he cried, his voice a roar. " Release my 
mother, depose Zuleyman, recall that fugitive recreant 
who cursed me, and humble myself to seek pardon at the 
hands of this insolent Italian cleric ? May my bones rot, 
may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a 
craven ! And do you counsel it, Emigio — do you really 
counsel that ? " He was in a towering rage. 

" Listen to that voice," Emigio answered him, and 
waved a hand to the open window. " How else will you 
silence it ? " 

Affonso Henriques sat down on the edge of the bed, and 
took his head in his hands. He was checkmated — and 
yet. . . . 



26 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

He rose and beat his hands together, summoning 
chamberlain and pages to help him dress and arm. 

" Where is the legate lodged ? " he asked Moniz. 

'' He is gone," the knight answered him. " He left at 
cock-crow, taking the road to Spain along the Mondego — 
so I learnt from the watch at the River Gate." 

" How came they to open for him ? " 

" His office, lord, is a key that opens all doors at any hour 
of day or night. They dared not detain or delay him." 

" Ha ! " grunted the Infante. " We will go after him, 
then." And he made haste to complete his dressing. Then 
he buckled on his great sword, and they departed. 

In the courtyard of the alcazar, he summoned Sancho 
Nunes and a half-dozen men-at-arms to attend him, 
mounted a charger and with Emigio Moniz at his side and 
the others following, he rode out across the draw-bridge 
into the open space that was thronged with the clamant 
inhabitants of the stricken city. 

A great cry went up when he showed himself — a mighty 
appeal to him for mercy and the remission of the curse. 
Then silence fell, a silence that invited him to answer and 
give comfort. 

He reined in his horse, and standing in his stirrups 
very tall and virile, he addressed them. 

" People of Coimbra," he announced, " I go to obtain 
this city's absolution from the ban that has been laid upon 
it. I shall return before sunset. Till then do you keep the 
peace." 

The voice of the multitude was raised again, this time to 
hail him as the father and protector of the Portuguese, 
and to invoke the blessing of Heaven upon his handsome 
head. 



The Absolution 27 



Riding between Moniz and Nunes, and followed by his 
glittering men-at-arms, he crossed the city and took the 
road along the river by which it was known that the legate 
had departed. All that morning they rode briskly amain, 
the Infante fasting, as he had risen, yet unconscious of 
hunger and of all else but the purpose that was consuming 
him. He rode in utter silence, his face set, his brows stern ; 
and Moniz, watching him furtively the while, wondered 
what thoughts were stirring in that rash, impetuous young 
brain, and was afraid. 

Towards noon at last they overtook the legate's party. 
They espied his mule-litter at the door of an inn in a little 
village some ten miles beyond the foothills of the Bussaco 
range. The Infante reined up sharply, a hoarse, fierce 
cry escaping him, akin to that of some creature of the wild 
when it espies its prey. 

Moniz put forth a hand to seize his arm. 

" My lord, my lord," he cried, fearfully. " What is your 
purpose ? " 

The prince looked him between the eyes, and his lips 
curled in a smile that was not altogether sweet. 

" I am going to beg Cardinal Corrado to have compassion 
on me," he answered, subtly mocking, and on that he swung 
down from his horse, and tossed the reins to a man-at-arms. 

Into the inn he clanked, Moniz and Nunes following 
closely. He thrust aside the vinter who, not knowing 
him, would have hindered him, great lord though he seemed, 
from disturbing the holy guest who was honouring the 
house. He strode on, and into the room where the Cardinal 
with his noble nephews sat at dinner. 

At sight of him, fearing violence, Giannino and Pierluigi 
came instantly to their feet, their hands upon their daggers. 



28 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

But Cardinal da Corrado sat unmoved. He looked up, a 
smile of ineffable gentleness upon his ascetic face. 

" I had hoped that you would come after me, my son," 
he said. " If you come a penitent, then has my prayer 
been heard." 

" A penitent ! " cried Affonso Henriques. He laughed 
wickedly, and plucked his dagger from its sheath. 

Sancho Nunes, in terror, set a detaining hand upon his 
prince's arm. 

" My lord," he cried in a voice that shook, " you will not 
strike the Lord's anointed — that were to destroy yourself 
for ever." 

" A curse," said Affonso Henriques, " perishes with him 
that uttered it." He could reason loosely, you see, this 
hot-blooded, impetuous young cutter of Gordian knots. 
" And it imports above all else that the curse should be 
lifted from my city of Coimbra." 

" It shall be, my son, as soon as you show penitence and 
a Christian submission to the Holy Father's will," said 
the undaunted Cardinal. 

" God give me patience with you," Affonso Henriques 
answered him. " Listen to me now, lord Cardinal." And 
he leaned forward on his dagger, burying the point of it 
some inches into the deal table. " That you should punish 
me with the weapons of the Faith for the sins that you 
allege against me I can understand and suffer. There is 
reason in that, perhaps. But will you tell me what reasons 
there can be in punishing a whole city for an offence 
which, if it exists at all, is mine alone ? — and in punishing 
it by a curse so terrible that all the consolations of religion 
are denied those true children of Mother Church, that no 
priestly office may be performed within the city, that men 



The Absolution 29 



and women may not approach the altars of the Faith, that 
they must die unshriven with their sins upon them, and so 
be damned through all eternity ? Where is the reason that 
urges this ? " 

The cardinal's smile had changed from one of benignity 
to one of guile. 

" Why, I will answer you. Out of their terror they will 
be moved to revolt against you, unless you relieve them of 
the ban. Thus, Lord Prince, I hold you in check. You 
make submission or else you are destroyed." 

Affonso Henriques considered him a moment. " You 
answer me indeed," said he, and then his voice swelled up 
in denunciation. " But this is statecraft, not religion. 
And when a prince has no statecraft to match that which is 
opposed to him, do you know what follows ? He has 
recourse to force. Lord Cardinal. You compel me to it ; 
upon your own head the consequences." 

The legate almost sneered. " What is the force of your 
poor lethal weapons compared with the spiritual power I 
wield ? Do you threaten me with death ? Do you think 
I fear it ? " He rose in a surge of sudden wrath, and tore 
open his scarlet robe. '' Strike here with your poniard. 
I wear no mail. Strike if you dare, and by the sacrilegious 
blow destroy yourself in this world and the next." 

The Infante considered him. Slowly he sheathed his 
dagger, smiHng a Httle. Then he beat his hands together. 
His men-at-arms came in. 

" Seize me those two Roman whelps," he commanded, and 
pointed to Giannino and Pierluigi. " Seize them, and make 
them fast. About it ! " 

" Lord Prince ! " cried the legate in a voice of appeal, 
wherein fear and anger trembled. 



30 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

It was the note of fear that heartened Aifonso Henriques. 
" About it ! " he cried again, though needlessly, for already 
his men-at-arms were at grips with the Cardinal's nephews. 
In a trice the kicking, biting, swearing pair were over- 
powered, deprived of arms, and pinioned. The men looked 
to their prince for further orders. In the background 
Moniz and Nunes witnessed all -with troubled countenances, 
whilst the Cardinal, beyond the table, white to the lips, 
demanded in a quavering voice to know what violence was 
intended, implored the Infante to consider, and in the same 
breath threatened him with dread consequences of this 
affront. 

Affonso Henriques, unmoved, pointed through the window 
to a stalwart oak that stood before the inn. 

" Take them out there, and hang them unshriven," he 
commanded. 

The Cardinal swayed, and almost fell forward. He 
clutched the table, speechless with terror for those lads 
who were as the very apple of his eye, he who so fearlessly 
had bared his own breast to the steel. 

The two comely Italian youths were dragged out writhing 
in their captors' hands. 

At last the half-swooning legate found his voice. " Lord 
Prince," he gasped. '^ Lord Prince . . . you cannot do 
this infamy ! You cannot ! I warn you that . . . 
that. . ." The threat perished unuttered, slain by 
mounting terror. " Mercy 1 Have mercy, lord ! as you 
hope for mercy ! " 

*' What mercy do you practise, you who preach a gospel 
of mercy in the world, and cry for mercy now ^ " the 
Infante asked him. 

^* But this is an infamy ! What harm have^those poor 



The Absolution 31 



children done ? What concern is it of theirs that I have 
offended you in performing my sacred duty ? " 

Swift into that opening flashed the home-thrust of the 
Infante's answer. 

" What harm have my people of Coimbra done ? What 
concern is it of theirs that I have offended you ? Yet to 
master me you did not hesitate to strike at them with the 
spiritual weapons that are yours. To master you I do not 
hesitate to strike at your nephews with the lethal weapons 
that are mine. When you shall have seen them hang you 
will understand the things that argument could not make 
clear to you. In the vileness of my act you will see a re- 
flection of the vileness of your own, and perhaps your heart 
will be touched, your monstrous pride abated." 

Outside, under the tree, the figures of the men-at-arms 
were moving. Expeditiously, and with indifference, they 
went about the preparations for the task entrusted to them. 

The Cardinal writhed, and fought for breath. " Lord 
Prince, this must not be ! " He stretched forth supplicat- 
ing hands. " Lord Prince, you must release my nephews." 

" Lord Cardinal, you must absolve my people." 

" If ... if you will first make submission. My duty 
... to the Holy See ... Oh God ! Will nothing move 
you ? " 

" When they have been hanged you^will understand, and 
out of your own affliction learn compassion." The Infante's 
voice was so cold, his mien so resolute that the legate 
despaired of conquering his purpose. Abruptly he 
capitulated, even as the halters went about the necks 
of his two cherished lads. 

" Stop ! " he screamed. " Bid them stop ! The curse 
shall be lifted." 



3 2 The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

Affonso Henriques opened the window with a leisureli- 
ness which to the legate seemed to belong to the realm of 
nightmare. 

" Wait yet a moment," the Infante called to those out- 
side, about whom by now a little knot of awe-stricken 
villagers had gathered. Then he turned again to Cardinal 
Corrado, who had sunk to his chair like a man exhausted, 
and sat now panting, his elbows on the table, his head in his 
hands. " Here," said the prince, " are the terms upon 
which you may have their lives : Complete absolution, and 
Apostolic benediction for my people and myself this very 
night, I on my side making submission to the Holy Father's 
will to the extent of releasing my mother from duress, with 
the condition that she leaves Portugal at once and does not 
return. As for the banished bishop and his successor, 
matters must remain as they are ; but you can satisfy your 
conscience on that score by yourself confirming the appoint- 
ment of Don Zuleyman. Come, my lord, I am being 
generous, I think. In the enlargement of my mother I 
afford you the means of satisfying Rome. If you have 
learnt your lesson from what I here proposed, your con- 
science should satisfy you of the rest." 

" Be it so," the Cardinal answered hoarsely. " I will 
return with you to Coimbra and do your will." 

Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in com- 
pletest sincerity in token that the feud between them was 
now completely healed, Affonso Henriques went down upon 
his knees, like the true and humble son of Holy Church he 
accounted himself, to ask a blessing at the Cardinal's hands. 



//. The False Demetrms 

Boris Godmtov and the Pretended Son of 

Ivan the Terrible 



//. The False Demetrius 



THE news of it first reached him whilst he sat at 
supper in the great hall of his palace in the Krem- 
lin. It came at a time when already there was enough 
to distract his mind ; for although the table before him was 
spread and equipped as became an emperor's, the gaunt 
spectre of famine stalked outside in the streets of Moscow, 
and men and women were so reduced by it that cannibalism 
was alleged to be breaking out amongst them. 

Alone, save for the ministering pages, sat Boris Godunov 
under the iron lamps that made of the table, with its white 
napery and vessels of gold and silver plate, an island of light 
in the gloom of that vast apartment. The air was fragrant 
with the scent of burning pine, for although the time of 
year was May, the^nights were chill, and a great log-fire 
was blazing on the distant hearth. To him, as he sat there, 
came his trusted Basmanov with those tidings which startled 
him^at first, seeming to herald that at last the sword of 
Nemesis was swung above his sinful head. 

Basmanov, a flush tinting the prominent cheek-bones 
of his sallow face, an excited glitter in his long eyes, began 
by ordering the pages out of earshot, then leaning forward 
quickly muttered forth his news. 

35 3* 



36 The Historical Nights' E^itertainment 

At the first words of it, the Tsars knife clashed ia.o his 
golden platter, and his short, powerful hands clutched 
the carved arms of his great gilded chair. Quickly he 
controlled himself, and then as he continued to listen he 
was moved to scorn, and a faint smile began to stir under 
his grizzled beard. 

A man had appeared in Poland — such was the burden 
of Basmanov's story — coming none knew exactly whence, 
who claimed to be Demetrius, the son of Ivan Vassielivitch, 
and lawful Tsar of Russia — Demetrius, who was believed 
to have died at Uglich ten years ago, and whose remains 
lay buried in Moscow, in the Church of St. Michael. This 
man had found shelter in Lithuania, in the house of Prince 
VYisniowiecki, and thither the nobles of Poland were now 
flocking to do him homage, acknowledging him the son of 
Ivan the Terrible. He was said to be the living image of 
the dead Tsar, save that he was swarthy and black-haired, 
like the dowager Tsarina, and there were two warts on his 
face, such as it was remembered had disfigured the counte- 
nance of the boy Demetrius. 

Thus Basmanov, adding that he had dispatched a 
messenger into Lithuania to obtain more precise confirma- 
tion of the story. That messenger — chosen in consequence 
of something else that Basmanov had been told — ^was 
Smirnoy Otrepiev. 

The Tsar Boris sat back in his chair, his eyes on the gem- 
encrusted goblet, the stem of which his fingers were 
mechanically turning. There was now no vestige of the 
smile on his round white face. It had grown set and 
thoughtful. 

" Find Priace Shuiski," he said presently, " and send 
. him to me here." 



The False Demetrius 37 

Upon the tale the boyar had brought him he offered now 
no comment. 

" We will talk of this again, Basmanov," was all he said 
in acknowledgment that he had heard, and in dismissal. 

But when the boyar had gone, Boris Godunov heaved 
himself to his feet, and strode over to the fire, his great 
head sunk between his massive shoulders. He was a 
short, thick-set, bow-legged man, inclining to corpulence. 
He set a foot, shod in red leather reversed with ermine, 
upon an andiron, and, leaning an elbow on the carved 
overmantel, rested his brow against his hand. His eyes 
stared into the very heart of the fire, as if they beheld 
there the pageant of the past, upon which his mind was 
bent. 

Nineteen years were sped since Ivan the Terrible had 
passed away, leaving two sons, Feodor Ivanovitch, who 
had succeeded him, and the infant Demetrius. Feodor, 
a weakling who was almost imbecile, had married Irene, 
the daughter of Boris Godunov, whereby it had fallen out 
that Boris became the real ruler of Russia, the power 
behind the throne. But his insatiable ambition coveted 
still more. He must wear the crown as well as wield the 
sceptre ; and this could not be until the Ruric dynasty 
which had ruled Russia for nearly seven centuries should 
be stamped out. Between himself and the throne stood 
his daughter's husband and their child, and the boy 
Demetrius, who had been dispatched with his mother, the 
dowager Tsarina, to UgHch. The three must be re- 
moved. 

Boris began with the last, and sought at first to drive 
him out of the succession without bloodshed. He 
attempted to have him pronounced illegitimate, on the 



38 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

ground that he was the son of Ivan's seventh wife (the 
orthodox Church recognizing no wife as legitimate beyond 
the third). But in this he failed. The memory of the 
terrible Tsar, the fear of him, was still alive in superstitious 
Russia, and none dared to dishonour his son. So Boris 
had recourse to other and surer means. He dispatched 
his agents to UgHch, and presently there came thence a 
story that the boy, whilst playing with a knife, had been 
taken with a fit of epilepsy, and had fallen, running the 
blade into his throat. But it was not a story that could 
carry conviction to the Muscovites, since with it came 
the news that the town of Uglich had risen against the 
emissaries of Boris, charging them with the murder of the 
boy, and killing them out of hand. 

Terrible had been the vengeance which Boris had 
exacted. Of the luckless inhabitants of the town two 
hundred were put to death by his orders, and the rest 
sent into banishment beyond the Ural Mountains, whilst 
the Tsarina Maria, Demetrius's mother, for having said 
that her boy was murdered at the instigation of Boris, 
was packed off to a convent, and had remained there ever 
since in close confinement. 

That had been in 1591. The next to go was Feodor's 
infant son, and lastly — in 1598 — Feodor himself, suc- 
cumbing to a mysterious illness, and leaving Boris a clear 
path to the throne. But he ascended it under the burden 
of his daughter's curse. Feodor's widow had boldly faced 
her father, boldly accused him of poisoning her husband 
to gratify his remorseless ambitions, and on a passionate 
appeal to God to let it be done by him as he had done by 
others she had departed to a convent, swearing never to 
set eyes upon him again 



The False Demetrius 39 

The thouglit of her was with him now, as he stood there 
looking into the heart of the fire ; and perhaps it was the 
memory of her curse that turned his stout heart to water, 
and made him afraid where there could surely be no cause 
for fear. For five years now had he been Tsar of Russia, 
and in these five years he had taken such a grip of power 
as was not lightly to be loosened. 

Long he stood there, and there he was found by the 
magnificent Prince Shuiski, whom he had bidden Basmanov 
to summon. 

" You went to Uglich when the Tsarevitch Demetrius 
was slain," said Boris. His voice and mien were calm 
and normal. " Yourself you saw the body. There is no 
possibiHty that you could have been mistaken in it ? " 

" Mistaken ? " The boyar was taken aback by the 
question. He was a tall man, considerably younger than 
Boris, who was in his fiftieth year. His face was lean and 
saturnine, and there was something sinister in the dark, 
close-set eyes under a single, heavy line of eyebrow. 

Boris explained his question, telHng him what he had 
learnt from Basmanov. Basil Shuiski laughed. The 
story was an absurd one. Demetrius was dead. Himself 
he had held the body in his arms, and no mistake was 
possible. 

Despite himself, a sigh of rehef fluttered from the lips of 
Boris. Shuiski was right. It was an absurd story, this. 
There was nothing to fear. He had been a fool to have 
trembled for a moment. 

Nevertheless, in the weeks that followed, he brooded 
more and more over all that Basmanov had said. It was 
in the thought that the nobiUty of Poland was flocking 
to the house of Wisniowiecki to do honour to this false 



40 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

son of Ivan the Terrible, that Boris found the chief cause 
of uneasiness. There was famine in Moscow, and empty 
belHes do not make for loyalty. Then, too, the Muscovite 
nobles did not love him. He had ruled too sternly, and 
had curbed their power. There vvere men like Basil 
Shuiski who knew too much — greedy, ambitious men, who 
might turn their knowledge to evil account. The moment 
might be propitious to the pretender, however false his 
claim. Therefore Boris dispatched a messenger to Wis- 
niowiecki with the offer of a heavy bribe if he would yield 
up the person of this false Demetrius. 

But that messenger returned empty-handed. He had 
reached Bragin too late. The pretender had already 
left the place, and was safely lodged in the castle of George 
Mniszek, the Palatine of Sandomir, to whose daughter 
Maryna he was betrothed. If these were ill tidings for 
Boris, there were worse to follow soon. Within a few 
months he learned from Sandomir that Demetrius had 
removed to Cracow, and that there he had been publicly 
acknowledged by Sigismund III. of Poland as the son of 
Ivan Vassielivitch, the rightful heir to the crown of Russia. 
He heard, too, the story upon which this belief was founded. 
Demetrius had declared that one of the agents employed 
by Boris Godunov to procure his murder at UgHch had 
bribed his physician Simon to perform the deed. Simon 
had pretended to agree as the only means of saving him. 
He had dressed the son of a serf, who slightly resembled 
Demetrius, in garments similar to those worn by the 
young prince, and thereafter cut the lad's throat, leaving 
those who had found the body to presume it to be the 
prince's. Meanwhile, Demetrius himself had been con- 
cealed by the physician, and very shortly thereafter carried 



The False Demetrius 41 

away from Uglich, to be placed in safety in a monastery, 
where he had been educated. 

Such, in brief, was the story with which Demetrius 
convinced the court of Poland, and not a few who had 
known the boy at Uglich came forward now to identify 
with him the grown man, who carried in his face so strong 
a resemblance to Ivan the Terrible. That story which 
Boris now heard was soon heard by all Russia, and Boris 
realized that something must be done to refute it. 

But something more than assurances — his own assur- 
ances — were necessary if the Muscovites were to believe 
him. And so at last Boris bethought him of the Tsarina 
Maria, the mother of the murdered boy. He had her 
fetched to Moscow from her convent, and told her of this 
pretender who was setting up a claim to the throne of 
Russia, supported by the King of Poland. 

She listened impassively, standing before him in the 
black robes and conventual coif v>^hich his tyranny had 
imposed upon her. When he had done, a faint smile 
swept over the face that had grown so hard in these last 
twelve years since that day when her boy had been slain 
almost under her very eyes. 

" It is a circumstantial tale," she said. " It is perhaps 
true. It is probably true." 

'' True ! " He bounded from his seat. " True ? What 
are you saying, woman ? Yourself you saw the boy dead." 

" I did, and I know who killed him." 

" But you saw him. You recognized him for your own, 
since you set the people on to kill those whom you beli eved 
had slain him." 

" Yes," she answered. And added the question : 
" What do you want of me now ? " 



42 The Historical Nights' Entertainrdent 

" What do I want ? " He was amazed tliat sKe should 
ask, exasperated. Had the conventual confinement turned 
her head r " I want your testimony. I want you to 
denounce this fellow for the impostor that he is. The 
people will believe you." 

" You think they will ? " Interest had kindled in her 
glance, 

" What else ? Are you not the mother of Demetrius, 
and shall not a mother know her own son r " 

" You forget. He was ten years of age then — a child. 
Now he is a grown man of three-and-twenty. How can I 
be sure ? How can I be sure of anything r " 

He swore a full round oath at her. " Because you saw 
him dead.'' 

'' Yet I may have been mistaken. I thought I knew the 
agents of yours who killed him. Yet you made me swear 
— as the price of my brothers' lives — that I was mistaken. 
Perhaps I was more mistaken than we thought. Perhaps 
my little Demetrius was not slain at all. Perhaps this 
man's tale is true." 

" Perhaps . . ." He broke off to stare at her, mis- 
trustfully, searchingly. " What do you mean ? " he asked 
her sharply. 

Again that wan smile crossed the hard, sharp-featured 
face that once had been so lovely. " I mean that if the 
devil came out of hell and called himself my son, I should 
acknowledge him to your undoing." 

Thus the pent-up hate and bitterness of years of brood- 
ing upon her wrongs broke forth. Taken aback, he quailed 
before it. His jaw dropped fooHshly, and he stared at 
her with wide, unblinking eyes. 

" The people will believe me, you say — they will believe 



The False Demetrius 43 

that a mother should know her own son. Then are your 
hours of usurpation numbered." 

If for a moment it appalled him, yet in the end, fore- 
warned, he was forearmed. It was foolish of her to let 
him look upon the weapon with which she could destroy 
him. The result of it was that she went back to her 
convent under close guard, and was thereafter confined 
with greater rigour than hitherto. 

Desperately Boris heard how the behef in Demetrius 
was gaining ground in Russia with the people. The 
nobles might still be sceptical, but Boris knew that he could 
Rot trust them, since they had no cause to love him. 
He began perhaps to reaHze that it is not good to rule by 
fear. 

And then at last came Smirnoy Otrepiev back from 
Cracow, where he had been sent by Basmanov to obtain 
with his own eyes confirmation of the rumour which 
had reached the boyar on the score of the pretender's 
real identity. 

The rumour, he declared, was right. The false 
Demetrius was none other than his own nephew, Grishka 
Otrepiev, who had once been a monk, but, unfrocked, 
had embraced the Roman heresy, and had abandoned 
kimself to Hcentious ways. You realize now why Smirnoy 
had been chosen by Basmanov for this particular 
mission. 

The news heartened Boris. At last he could denounce 
the impostor in proper terms, and denounce him he did. 
He sent an envoy to Sigismund III. to proclaim the fellow's 
true identity, and to demand his expulsion from the 
Kingdom of Poland ; and his denunciation was supported 
by a solemn excommunication pronounced by the Patriarch 



44 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

of Moscow against the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otrepiev, 
who now falsely called himself Demetrius Ivanovitch. 

But the denunciation did not carry the conviction that 
Boris expected. It was reported that the Tsarevitch was 
a courtly, accomphshed man, speaking Polish and Latin, 
as well as Russian, skilled in horsemanship and in the 
use of arms, and it was asked how an unfrocked monk 
had come by these accomplishments. Moreover, although 
Boris, fore-warned, had prevented the Tsarina Maria 
from supporting the pretender out of motives of revenge, 
he had forgotten her two brothers ; he had not foreseen 
that, actuated by the same motives, they might do that 
which he had prevented her from doing. This was what 
occurred. The brothers Nagoy repaired to Cracow 
publicly to acknowledge Demetrius their nephew, and to 
enrol themselves under his banner. 

Against this Boris realized that mere words were useless. 
The sword of Nemesis was drawn indeed. His sins had 
found him out. Nothing remained him but to arm and go 
forth to meet the impostor, who was advancing upon 
Moscow with a great host of Poles and Cossacks. 

He appraised the support of the Nagoys at its right 
value. They, too, had been at Uglich, and had seen the 
dead boy, almost seen him slain. Vengeance upon him- 
self was their sole motive. But was it possible that 
Sigismund of Poland was really deceived, as well as the 
Palatine of Sandomir, whose daughter was betrothed to 
the adventurer, Prince Adam Wisniowiecki, in whose 
house the false Demetrius had first made his appearance, 
and all those Polish nobles who flocked to his banner ? 
Or were they, too, moved by some ulterior motive which 
he could not fathom ? 



The False Demetrius 45 

That was the riddle that plagued Boris Godunov what 
time — ^in the winter of 1604 — ^he sent his armies to meet 
the invader. He sent them because, crippled now by 
gout, even the satisfaction of leading them was denied 
him. He was forced to stay at home in the gloomy apart- 
ments of the Kremlin, fretted by care, with the ghosts of 
his evil past to keep him company, and assure him that 
the hour of judgment was at hand. 

With deepening rage he heard how town after town 
capitulated to the adventurer, and mistrusting Basmanov, 
who was in command, he sent Shuiski to replace him. 
In January of 1605 the armies met at Dobrinichi, and 
Demetrius suffered a severe defeat, which compelled 
him to fall back on Putioli. He lost all his infantry, and 
every Russian taken in arms on the pretender's side was 
remorselessly hanged as Boris had directed. 

Hope began to revive in the heart of Boris ; but as 
months passed and no decision came, those hopes faded 
again, and the canker of the past gnawed at his vitals 
and sapped his strength. And then there was ever present 
to his mind the nightmare riddle of the pretender's iden- 
tity. At last, one evening in April, he sent for Smirnoy 
Otrepiev to question him again concerning that nephew 
of his. Otrepiev came in fear this time. It is not good 
to be the uncle of a man who is giving so much trouble 
to a great prince. 

Boris glared at him from blood-injected eyes. His 
round, white face was haggard, his cheeks sagged, and his 
fleshly body had lost all its erstwhile firm vigour. 

" I have sent for you to question you again," he said, 
" touching this lewd nephew of yours, this Grishka 
Otrepiev, this unfrocked monk, who claims to be Tsar of 



46 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Muscovy. Are you sure, man, that you have made no 
mistake — are you sure ? " 

Otrepiev was shaken by the Tsar's manner, by the 
ferocity of his mien. But he made answer : " Alas, 
Highness ! I could not be mistaken. I am sure." 

Boris grunted, and moved his body irritably in his 
chair. His terrible eyes watched Otrepiev mistrustfully. 
He had reached the mental stage in which he mistrusted 
everything and everybody. 

" You lie, you dog," he snarled savagely. 
*' Highness, I swear . . ." 

" Lies ! " Boris roared him down. " And here's the 
proof. Would Sigismund of Poland have acknowledged 
him had he been what you say ? When I denounced him 
the unfrocked monk Grishka Otrepiev, would not Sigis- 
mund have verified the statement had it been true ? " 

" The brothers Nagoy, the uncles of the lead Deme- 
trius . . ." Otrepiev -was beginning, when again Boris 
interrupted him. 

" Their acknowledgment of him came after Sigismund's, 
after — long after — my denunciation." He broke into 
oaths. " I say you lie. Will you stand there and palter 
with me, man ? Will you wait until the rack pulls you 
joint from joint before you speak the truth ? " 

" Highness ! " cried Otrepiev, " I have served you 
faithfully these years." 

" The truth, man ; as you hope for life," thundered the 
Tsar, *' the whole truth of this foul nephew of yours, if 
so be he is your nephew." 

And Otrepiev spoke the whole truth at last in his great 
dread. " He is not my nephew," 
" Not ? " It was a roar of rage. '* You dared lie to me I " 



The False Demetrius 47 

Otreplev's knees were loosened by terror, and he went 
down upon them before the irate Tsar. 

" I did not lie — not altogether. I told you a half- 
truth, Highness. His name is Grishka Otrepiev ; it is 
the name by which he always has been known, and he is 
an unfrocked monk, all as I said, and the son of my brother's 
wife." 

" Then . . . then . . ." Boris was bewildered. Sud- 
denly he understood. " And his father ? " 

" Was Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. Grishka 
Otrepiev is King Stephen's natural son." 

Boris seemed to fight for breath for a moment. 

" This is true ? " he asked, and himself answered the 
question. " Of course it is true. It is the light at last 
... at last. You may go." 

Otrepiev stumbled out, thankful, surprised to escape 
so lightly. He could not know of how little account to 
Boris was the deception he had practised in comparison 
with the truth he had now revealed, a truth that shed a 
fearful, dazzling light upon the dark mystery of the false 
Demetrius. The problem that so long had plagued the 
Tsar was solved at last. 

This pretended Demetrius, this unfrocked monk, was 
a natural son of Stephen Bathory, and a Roman CathoHc. 
Such men as Sigismund of Poland and the Voyvode of 
Sandomir were not deceived on the score of his identity. 
They, and no doubt other of the leading nobles of Poland, 
knew the man for what he was, and because of it sup- 
ported him, using the fiction of his being Demetrius 
Ivanovitch to impose upon the masses, and facihtate the 
pretender's occupation of the throne of Russia. And the 
object of it was to set up in Muscovy a ruler who should 



48 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

be a Pole and a Roman Catholic. Boris knew the bigotry 
of Sigismund, who already had sacrificed a throne — that 
of Sweden — to his devout conscience, and he saw clearly 
to the heart of this intrigue. Had he not heard that a 
Papal Nuncio had been at Cracow, and that this Nuncio 
had been a stout supporter of the pretender's claim ? 
What could be the Pope's concern in the Muscovite suc- 
cession ? Why should a Roman priest support the claim 
of a prince to the throne of a country devoted to the Greek 
faith? 

At last all was clear indeed to Boris. Rome was at 
the bottom of this business, whose true aim was the 
Romanization of Russia ; and Sigismund had fetched 
Rome into it, had set Rome on. Himself an elected 
King of Poland, Sigismund may have seen in the ambi- 
tious son of Stephen Bathory one who might perhaps 
supplant him on the Polish throne. To divert his ambi- 
tion into another channel he had fathered — if he had not 
invented — this fiction that the pretender was the dead 
Demetrius. 

Had that fool Smirnoy Otrepiev but dealt frankly with 
him from the first, what months of annoyance might he 
not have been spared ; how easy it might have been to 
prick this bubble of imposture. But better late than 
never. To-morrow he would publish the true facts, and 
all the world should know the truth ; and it was a truth 
that must give pause to those fools in this superstitious 
Russia, so devoted to the Orthodox Greek Church, who 
favoured the pretender. They should see the trap that 
was being baited for them. 

There was a banquet in the Kremlin that night to certain 
foreign envoys, and Boris came to table in better spirits 



The False Demetrius 49 

than lie had been for many a day. He was hearterlfed 
by the thought of what was now to do, by the conviction 
that he held the false Demetrius in the hollow of his hand. 
There to those envoys he w^ould announce to-night what 
to-morrow he would announce to all Russia — tell them 
of the discovery he had made, and reveal to his subjects 
the peril in which they stood. Towards the close of the 
banquet he rose to address his guests, announcing that 
he had an important communication for them. In silence 
they waited for him to speak. And then, abruptly, with 
no word yet spoken, he sank back into his chair, fighting 
for breath, clawing the air, his face empurpling until 
suddenly the blood gushed copiously from his mouth and 
nostrils. 

He was vouchsafed time in which to strip off his splendid 
apparel and wrap himself in a monk's robe, thus sym- 
bolizing the putting aside of earthly vanities, and then 
he expired. 

It has been now and then suggested that he was poisoned. 
His death was certainly most opportune to Demetrius. 
But there is nothing in the manner of it to justify the 
opinion that it resulted from anything other than an 
apoplexy. 

His death brought the sinister opportunist Shuiski back 
to Moscow to place Boris's son Feodor on the throne. But 
the reign of this lad of sixteen was very brief. Basmanov^ 
who had gone back to the army, being now inspired by 
jealousy and fear of the ambitious Shuiski, went ovei 
at once to the pretender, and proclaimed him Tsar of 
Russia. Thereafter events moved sv/iftly, Basmanov 
marched on Moscow, entered it in triumph, and again 
proclaimed Demetrius, whereupon the people rose in 

4 



50 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

revolt against the son of the usurper Boris, stormed the 
Kremlin, and strangled the boy and his mother. 
-- Basil Shuiski would have shared their fate had he not 
bought his life at the price of betrayal. Publicly he 
declared to the Muscovites that the boy whose body he 
had seen at Uglich was not that of Demetrius, but 
of a peasant's son, who had been murdered in his 
stead. 

That statement cleared the last obstacle from the pre- 
tender's path, and he advanced now to take possession of 
his throne. Yet before he occupied it, he showed the real 
principles that actuated him, proved how true had been 
Boris's conclusion. He ordered the arrest and degrada- 
tion of the Patriarch who had denounced and excom- 
municated him, and in his place appointed Ignatius, 
Bishop of Riazan, a man suspected of belonging to the 
Roman communion. 

On the 30th of June of that year 1605, Demetrius 
made his triumphal entry into Moscow. He went to 
prostrate himself before the tomb of Ivan the Terrible, 
and then to visit the Tsarina Maria, who, after a brief 
communion with him in private, came forth publicly to 
acknowledge him as her son. 

Just as Shuiski had purchased his life by a falsehood, 
so did she purchase her enlargement from that convent 
where so long she had been a prisoner, and restoration to 
the rank that was her proper due. After all, she had 
cause for gratitude to Demetrius,^who, in addition to 
restoring her these things, had avenged her upon the 
hated Boris Godunov. 

His coronation followed in due'season, and at last this 
amazing adventurer found himself firmly seated upon the 



The False Demetrius 51 

throne of Russia, with Basmanov at his right hand to 
help and guide him. And at first all went well, and the 
young Tsar earned a certain measure of popularity. If his 
swarthy face was coarse-featured, yet his bearing was so 
courtly and gracious that he won his way quickly to 
the hearts of his people. For the rest he was of a tall, 
graceful figure, a fine horseman, and of a knightly address 
at arms. 

But he soon found himself in the impossible position of 
having to serve two masters. On the one hand there was 
Russia, and the orthodox Russians whose tsar he was, and 
on the other there were the Poles, who had made him so 
at a price, and who now demanded payment. Because 
he saw that this payment would be difficult and fraught 
with peril to himself he would — after the common wont of 
princes who have attained their objects — have repudiated 
the debt. And so he was disposed to ignore, or at least 
to evade, the persistent reminders that reached him from 
the Papal Nuncio, to whom he had promised the intro- 
duction into Russia of the Roman faith. 

But presently came a letter from Sigismund couched in 
different terms. The King of Poland wrote to Demetrius 
that word had reached him that Boris Godunov was still 
alive, and that he had taken refuge in England, adding 
that he might be tempted to restore the fugitive to the 
throne of Muscovy. 

The threat contained in tJiat bitter piece of sarcasm 
aroused Demetrius to a sense of the responsibilities he 
had undertaken, which were precisely as Boris Godunov 
had surmised. As a beginning he granted the Jesuits 
permission to build a church within the sacred walls of the 
Kremlin, whereby he gave great scandal. Soon follov/ed 

4* 



52 The Histoncal Nights* Entertainment 

other signs that he was not a true son of the Orthodox 
Greek Church ; he gave offence by his indifference to public 
worship, by his neglect of Russian customs, and by sur- 
rounding himself with Roman Catholic Poles, upon whom 
he conferred high offices and dignities. 

And there were those at hand ready to stir up public 
feeling against him, resentful boyars quick to suspect that 
perhaps they had been swindled. Foremost among these 
was the sinister turncoat Shuiski, who had not derived 
from his perjury all the profit he expected, who resented, 
above all, to see Basmanov — who had ever been his rival — 
invested with a power second only to that of the Tsar 
himself. Shuiski, skilled in intrigue, went to work in his 
underground, burrowing fashion. He wrought upon the 
clergy, who in their turn wrought upon the populace, and 
presently all was seething disaffection under a surface 
apparently calm. 

The eruption came in the following May, when Maryna, 
the daughter of the Palatine of Sandomir, made her splendid 
entry into Moscow, the bride-elect of the young Tsar. 
The dazzling procession and the feasting that followed 
found little favour in the eyes of the Muscovites, who now 
beheld their city aswarm with heretic Poles. 

The marriage was magnificently solemnized on the 
l8th of May, 1606. And now Shuiski applied a match to 
the train he had so skilfully laid. Demetrius had caused 
a timber fort to be built before the walls of Moscow for 
a martial spectacle which he had planned for the enter- 
tainment of his bride. Shuiski put it abroad that the fort 
was intended to serve as an engine of destruction, and 
that the martial spectacle was a pretence, the real object 
being that from the fort the Poles were to cast firebrands 



The False Demetrius 53 

into the city, and then proceed to the slaughter of the 
inhabitants. 

No more was necessary to infuriate an already exas- 
perated populace. They flew to arms, and on the night 
of the 29th of May they stormed the Kremlin, led on by 
the arch-traitor Shuiski himself, to the cry of " Death 
to the heretic ! Death to the impostor ! " 

They broke into the palace, and swarmed up the stairs 
into the Tsar's bedchamber, slaying the faithful Bas- 
manov, who stood sword in hand to bar the way and 
give his master time to escape. The Tsar leapt from a 
balcony thirty feet to the ground, broke his leg, and lay 
there helpless, to be dispatched by his enemies, who 
presently discovered him. 

He died firmly and fearlessly protesting that he was 
Demetrius Ivanovitch, Nevertheless, he was Grishka 
Otrepiev, the unfrocked monk. 

It has been said that he was no more than an instru- 
ment in the hands of priestcraft, and that because he 
played his part badly he met his doom. But something 
more he was. He was an instrument indeed, not of priest- 
craft, but of Fate, to bring home to Boris Godunov the 
hideous sins that stained his soul, and to avenge his 
victims by personating one of them. In that personation 
he had haunted Boris as effectively as if he had been the 
very ghost of the boy murdered at Uglich, haunted and 
tortured, and finally broken him so that he died. 

That was the part assigned him by Fate in the mys- 
terious scheme of human things. And that part being 
played, the rest mattered little. In the nature of him and 
of his position it was impossible that his imposture should 
be other than ephemeral. 



///. The Hermosa Fembra 

An Episode of the Inquisition in Seville 



///. The Hermosa Fenibra 



APPREHENSION; hung like a thundercloud over 
the city of Seville in those earlv days of the year 
148 1. It had been growing since the previous October, 
when the Cardinal of Spain and Frey Tomas de Tor- 
quemada, acting jointly on behalf of the Sovereigns — 
Ferdinand and Isabella — had appointed the first inquisitors 
for Castile, ordering them to set up a Tribunal of the Faith 
in Seville, to deal with the apostatizing said to be rampant 
among the New-Christians, or baptized Jews, vi^ho made 
up so large a proportion of the population. 

Among the many oppressive Spanish enactments 
against the Children of Israel, it was prescribed that all 
should wear the distinguishing circlet of red cloth on the 
shoulder of their gabardines ; that they should reside 
within the walled confines of their ghettos and never 
be found beyond them after nightfall, and that they 
should not practise as doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, 
or innkeepers. The desire to emancipate themselves 
from these and other restrictions upon their commerce 
with Christians and from the generally intolerable condi- 
tions of bondage and ignominy imposed upon them, had 
driven many to accept baptism and embrace Christianity. 

57 



58 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

But even such New-Christians as were sincere in their 
professions of faith failed to find in this baptism the 
peace they sought. Bitter racial hostility, though some- 
times tempered, was never extinguished by their 
conversion. 

Hence the alarm with which they viewed the gloomy, 
funereal, sinister pageant — the white-robed, black- 
mantled and hooded inquisitors, with their attendant 
familiars and barefoot friars — headed by a Dominican 
bearing the white Cross, which invaded the city of Seville 
one day towards the end of December, and took its way 
to the Convent of St. Paul, there to establish the Holy 
Office of the Inquisition. The fear of the New-Christians 
that they were to be the object of the attentions of this 
dread tribunal had sufficed to drive some thousands of 
them out of the city, to seek refuge in such feudal lordships 
as those of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of 
Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. 

This exodus had led to the publication by the newly- 
appointed inquisitors of the edict of 2nd January, in which 
they set forth that inasmuch as it had come to their know- 
ledge that many persons had departed out of Seville in 
fear of prosecution upon grounds of heretical pravity, they 
commanded the nobles of the Kingdom of Castile that 
within fifteen days they should make an exact return of 
the persons of both sexes who had sought refuge in their 
lordships or jurisdictions ; that they arrest all these and 
lodge them in the prison of the Inquisition in Seville, 
confiscating their property, and holding it at the disposal 
of the inquisitors ; that none should shelter any fugitive 
under pain of greater excommunication and of other 
penalties by law established against abettors of heretics. 



The Hermosa Fembra 59 

The harsh injustice that lay in this call to arrest men 
and women merely because they had departed from 
Seville before departure was in any way forbidden, revealed 
the severity with which the inquisitors intended to pro- 
ceed. It completed the consternation of the New-Chris- 
tians who had remained behind, and how numerous these 
were may be gathered from the fact that in the district 
of Seville alone they numbered a hundred thousand, 
many of them occupying, thanks to the industry and 
talent characteristic of their race, positions of great 
eminence. It even disquieted the well-favoured young 
Don Rodrigo de Cardona, who in all his vain, empty, pam- 
pered and rather vicious life had never yet known perturba- 
tion. Not that he was a New-Chxistian. He was of a 
lineage that went back to the Visigoths, of purest red 
Castilian blood, untainted by any strain of that dark- 
hued, unclean fluid alleged to flow in Hebrew veins. But 
it happened that he was in love with the daughter of the 
milHonaire Diego de Susan, a girl whose beauty was so 
extraordinary that she was known throughout Seville 
and for many a mile around as la Hermosa Fembra ; and 
he knew that such commerce — licit or illicitly conducted 
— was disapproved by the holy fathers. His relations 
with the girl had been perforce clandestine, because the 
disapproval of the holy fathers was matched in thorough- 
ness by that of Diego de Susan. It had been vexatious 
enough on that account not to be able to boast himself 
the favoured of the beautiful and opulent Isabella de 
Susan ; it was exasperating to discover now a new and 
more imperative reason for this odious secrecy. 

Never sped a lover to his mistress in a frame of mind 
more aggrieved than that which afflicted Don Rodrigo as, 



6o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

tight- wrapped in his black cloak, he gained the Calle de 
Ataud on that January night. 

Anon, however, when by way of a garden gate and an 
easily escaladed balcony he found himself in the pre- 
sence of Isabella, the delight of her effaced all other con- 
siderations. Her father was from home, as she had told 
him in the note that summoned him; he was away at 
Palacios on some merchant's errand, and^would not return 
until the morrow. The servants were all abed, and so 
Don Rodrigo might put off his cloak and hat, and lounge 
at his ease upon the low Moorish divan, w^hat time she 
waited upon him with a Saracen goblet filled with sweet 
wine of Malaga. The room in which she received him 
was one set apart for her own use, her bower, a long, low- 
ceilinged chamber, furnished with luxury and taste. The 
walls were hung with tapestries, the floor spread with 
costly Eastern rugs ; on an inlaid Moorish table a tall, 
three-beaked lamp of beaten copper charged with aromatic 
oil shed light and perfume through the apartment. 

Don Rodrigo sipped his wine, and his dark, hungry 
eyes followed her as she moved about him with vaguely 
voluptuous, almost feline grace. The wine, the heavy 
perfume of the lamp, and the beauty of her played havoc 
among them with his senses, so that he forgot for the 
moment his CastiHan lineage and clean Christian blood, 
forgot that she derived from the accursed race of the 
Crucifiers. All that he remembered was that she was the 
loveUest woman in Seville, daughter to the v/ealthiest 
man, and in that hour of weakness he decided to convert 
into reality that which had hitherto been no more than aa 
infamous pretence. He would loyally fulfil the false, 
disloyal promises he had made. He would take her to 



The Hermosa Femhra 6i 

wife. It was a sacrifice which her beauty and her wealth 
should make worth while. Upon that impulse he spoke 
now, abruptly : 

•' Isabella, when will you marry me ? " 

She stood before him, looking down into his weak, 
handsome face, her fingers interlacing his own. She 
merely smiled. The question did not greatly move her. 
Not knowing him for the scoundrel that he was, guessing 
nothing of the present perturbation of his senses, she 
found it very natural that he should ask her to appoint 
the day. 

" It is a question you must ask my father," she answered 
him. 

" I will," said he, " to-morrow, on his return." And he 
drew her down beside him. 

But that father was nearer than either of them dreamed. 
At that very moment the soft thud of the closing house- 
door sounded through the house. It brought her sharply 
to her feet, and loose from his coiling arms, with quickened 
breath and blanching face. A moment she hung there, 
tense, then sped to the door of the room, set it ajar and 
listened. 

Up the stairs came the sound of footsteps and of mutter- 
ing voices. It was her father, and others with him. 

With ever-mounting fear she turned to Don Rodrigo, 
and breathed the question : " If they should come here ? " 

The Castilian stood where he had risen by the divan, 
his face paler now than its pale, aristocratic wont, his 
eyes reflecting the fear that glittered in her own. He had 
no delusion as to what action Diego de Susan would take 
upon discovering him. These Jewish dogs were quickly 
stirred to passion, and as jealous as their betters of the 



62 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

honour of their womenfolk. Already Don Rodrigo in 
imagination saw his clean red Christian blood bespattering 
that Hebrew floor, for he had no weapon save the heavy 
Toledo dagger at his girdle, and Diego de Susan was not 
alone. 

It was, he felt, a ridiculous position for a Hidalgo of 
Spain. But his dignity was to suffer still greater damage. 
In another moment she had bundled him into an alcove 
behind the arras at the chamber's end, a tiny closet that 
was no better than a cupboard contrived for the storing 
of household linen. She had moved with a swift pre- 
cision which at another time might have provoked his 
admiration, snatching up his cloak and hat, and other 
evidences of his presence, quenching the lamp, and drag- 
ging him to that place of cramped concealment, which 
she remained to share with him. 

Came presently movements in the room beyond, and the 
voice of her father : 

" We shall be securest from intrusion here. It is my 
daughter's room. If you will give me leave, I will go 
down again to admit our other friends." 

Those other friends, as Don Rodrigo gathered, continued 
to arrive for the next half-hour, until in the end there 
must have been some twenty of them assembled in that 
chamber. The mutter of voices had steadily increased, 
but so confused that no more than odd words, affording no 
clue to the reason of this gathering, had reached the 
hidden couple. 

And then quite suddenly a silence fell, and on that 
silence beat the sharp, clear voice of Diego de Susan 
addressing them. 

" My friends," he said, " I have called you hither that 



The Hermosa Fembra 63 

we may concert measures for the protection of ourselves 
and all New-Christians in Seville from the fresh peril by 
which we are menaced. The edict of the inquisitors 
reveals how much we have to fear. You may gather 
from it that the court of the Holy Office is hardly likely 
to deal in justice, and that the most innocent may find 
himself at any moment exposed to its cruel mercies. 
Therefore it is for us now to consider how to protect 
ourselves and our property from the unscrupulous acti- 
vities of this tribunal. You are the principal New- 
Christian citizens of Seville ; you are wealthy, not only 
in property, but also in the goodwill of the people, who 
trust and respect, and at need will follow, you. If nothing 
less will serve, we must have recourse to arms ; and so 
that we are resolute and united, my friends, we shall 
prevail against the inquisitors." 

Within the alcove, Don Rodrigo felt his skin roughening 
with horror at this speech, which breathed sedition not 
only against the Sovereigns, but against the very Church. 
And with his horror was blent a certain increase of fear. 
If his situation had been perilous before, it was tenfold 
more dangerous now. Discovery, since he had overheard 
this treason, must mean his certain death. And Isabella, 
realizing the same to the exclusion of all else, clutched 
his arm and cowered against him in the dark. 

There was worse to follow. Susan's address was 
received with a murmur of applause, and then others 
spoke, and several were named, and their presence thus 
disclosed. There was the influential Manuel Sauli, who 
next to Susan was the wealthiest man in Seville ; there 
was^Torralba, the Governor of Triana ; Juan Abolafio, 
the_farmer of the royal customs, and his brother Fer- 



64 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

nandez, the licentiate, and there were others — all of them 
men of substance, some even holding office under the 
Crown. Not one was there who dissented from anything 
that Susan had said ; rather did each contribute some spur 
to the general resolve. In the end it was concerted that 
each of those present should engage himself to raise a pro- 
portion of the men, arms and money that would be needed 
for their enterprise. And upon that the meeting was 
dissolved, and they departed. Susan himself went with 
them. He had work to do in the common cause, he 
announced, and he would do it that very night in which 
it was supposed that he was absent at Palacios. 

At last, when all had gone, and the house was still 
again, Isabella and her lover crept forth from their con- 
cealment, and in the light of the lamp which Susan had 
left burning each looked into the other's white, startled 
face. So shaken was Don Rodrigo with horror of what 
he had overheard, and with the terror of discovery, that 
it was with difficulty he kept his teeth from chattering. 

" Heaven protect us ! " he gasped. " What Judaizing 
was this ? " 

" Judaizing ! " she echoed. It was the term applied 
to apostacy, to the relapse of New-Christians to Judaism, 
an offence to be expiated at the stake. " Here was no 
Judaizing. Are you mad, Rodrigo ? You heard no single 
word that sinned against the Faith." 

" Did I not ? I heard treason enough to . . ." 

''No, nor treason either. You heard honourable, 
upright men considering measures of defence against 
oppression, injustice, and evil acquisitiveness masquerading 
in the holy garments of religion." 

He stared askance at her for a moment, then his full 



The Hermosa Femhra 65 

lips curled into a sneer. " Of course you would seek to 
justify them," he said. " You are of that foul brood your- 
self. But you cannot think to cozen me, who am of clean 
Old-Christian blood and a true son of Mother Church. 
These men plot evil against the Holy Inquisition. Is 
that not Judaizing when it is done by Jews ? " 

She was white to the lips, and a new horror stared at 
him from her great dark eyes ; her lovely bosom rose and 
fell in tumult. Yet still she sought to reason with him. 

" They are not Jews — not one of them. Why, Perez 
is himself in holy orders. All of them are Christians, 
and . . ." 

" Newly-baptized ! " he broke in, sneering viciously. 
" A defilement of that holy sacrament to gain them worldly 
advantages. That is revealed by what passed here just 
now. Jews they were born, the sons of Jews, and Jews 
they remain under their cloak of mock Christianity, to be 
damned as Jews in the end." He was panting now with 
fiery indignation ; a holy zeal inflamed this profligate 
defiler. " God forgive me that ever I entered here. Yet 
I do believe that it was His will that I should come to 
overhear what is being plotted. Let me depart from 
hence." 

With a passionate gesture of abhorrence he swung 
towards the door. Her clutch upon his arm arrested 
him. 

'' Whither do you go ? " she asked him sharply. He 
looked now into her eyes, and of all that they contained 
he saw only fear ; he saw nothing of the hatred into 
which her love had been transmuted in that moment by 
his unsparing insults to herself, her race and her home, by 
the purpose which she clearly read in him. 

5 



66 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" Whither ? " he echoed, and sought to shake her off. 
*^ Whither my Christian duty bids me." 

It was enough for her. Before he could prevent or 
suspect her purpose, she had snatched the heavy Toledo 
blade from his girdle, and armed with it stood between 
the door and him. 

" A moment, Don Rodrigo. Do not attempt to advance, 
or, as Heaven watches us, I strike, and it maybe that I 
shall kill you. We must talk awhile before you go." 

Amazed, chapfallen, half-palsied, he stood before her, 
his fine religious zeal wiped out by fear of that knife in her 
v/eak woman's hand. Rapidly to-night was she coming 
into real knowledge of this CastiHan gentleman, whom with 
pride she had taken for her lover. It was a knowledge 
that was to sear her presently with self-loathing and self- 
contempt. But for the moment her only consideration 
was that, as a direct result of her own wantonness, her 
father stood in mortal peril. If he should perish through 
the delation of this creature, she would account herself 
his slayer, 

" You have not considered that the delation you intend 
will destroy my father," she said quietly. 

" There is my Christian duty to consider," answered 
he, but without boldness now. 

" Perhaps. But there is something you must set 
against it. Have you no duty as a lover — no duty to 
me ? " 

" No earthly duty can weigh against a spiritual obliga- 
tion. . . ." 

'i- " Ah, wait ! Have patience. You have not well 
considered, that is plain. In coming here in secret you 
wronged my father. You will not trouble to deny it. 



The Hermosa Fembra 67 

Jointly we wronged him, you and I. Will you then take 
advantage of something learnt whilst you were hiding 
there like a thief from the consequences of what you did, 
and so do him yet this further wrong ? " 

" Must I wrong my conscience ? " he asked her sullenly. 

" Indeed, I fear you must." 

" Imperil my immortal soul ? " He almost laughed. 
" You talk in vain." 

" But I have something more than words for you." 
With her left hand she drew upon the fine gold chain about 
her neck, and brought forth a tiny jewelled cross. Passing 
the chain over her head, she held it out. 

" Take this," she bade him. " Take it, I say. Now, 
with that sacred symbol in your hand, make solemn oath 
to divulge no word of what you have learnt here to-night, 
or else resign yourself to an unshriven death. For either 
you take that oath, or I rouse the servants and have 
you dealt with as one who has intruded here unbidden for 
an evil end." She backed away from him as she spoke, 
and threw wide the door. Then, confronting him from 
the threshold, she admonished him again, her voice no 
louder than a whisper. " Quick now ! Resolve yourself. 
Will you die here with all your sins upon you, and so 
destroy for all eternity the immortal soul that urges you 
to this betrayal, or will you take the oath that I require ? " 

He began an argument that was like a sermon of the 
Faith. But she cut him short. " For the last time ! " . 
she bade him. " Will you decide ? " 

He chose the coward's part, of course, and did violence 
to his fine conscience. With the cross in his hand he 
repeated after her the words of the formidable oath that 
she administered, an oath which it must damn his iim- 

5* 



68 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

mortal soul to break. Because of that, because she 
imagined that she had taken the measure of his faith, she 
returned him his dagger, and let him go at last. She 
imagined that she had bound him fast in irrefragable 
spiritual bonds. 

And even on the morrow, when her father and all those 
who had been present at that meeting at Susan's house 
were arrested by order of the Holy Office of the Inqui- 
sition, she still clung to that belief. Yet presently a doubt 
crept in, a doubt that she must at all costs resolve. And 
so presently she called for her litter, and had herself carried 
to the Convent of St. Paul, where she asked to see Frey 
Alonso de Ojeda, the Prior of the Dominicans of 
Seville. 

She was left to wait in a square, cheerless, dimly-lighted 
room pervaded by a musty smell, that had for only furni- 
ture a couple of chairs and a praying-stool, and for only 
ornament a great, gaunt crucifix hanging upon one of its 
whitewashed walls. 

Thither came presently two Dominican friars. One of 
these was a harsh-featured man of middle height and 
square build, the uncompromising zealot Ojeda. The other 
was tall and lean, stooping slightly at the shoulders, 
haggard and pale of countenance, with deep-set, luminous 
dark eyes, and a tender, wistful mouth. This was the 
Queen's confessor, Frey Tomas de Torquemada, Grand 
Inquisitor of Castile. He approached her, leaving Ojeda 
in the background, and stood a moment regarding her 
with eyes of infinite kindliness and compassion. 

" You are the daughter of that misguided man, Diego de 
•Susan," he said, in a gentle voice, " God help and 
strengthen you, my child, against the trials that may be 



The Hermosa Fembra 69 

in store for you. What do you seek at our poor hands I 
Speak, child, without fear." 

" Father," she faltered, " I come to implore your pity," 

" No need to implore it, child. Should I withhold pity 
who stand myself in need of pity, being a sinner — as are 
we all." 

" It is for my father that I come to beg your mercy." 

" So I supposed." A shade crossed the gentle, wistful 
face ; the tender melancholy deepened in the eyes that 
regarded her. " If your father is innocent of what has 
been alleged against him, the benign tribunal of the Holy 
Office will bring his innocence to light, and rejoice therein ; 
if he is guilty, if he has strayed — as we may all stray 
unless fortified by heavenly grace — ^he shall be given the 
means of expiation, that his salvation may be assured 
him." 

She shivered at the words. She knew the mercy in 
which the inquisitors dealt, a mercy so spiritual that it 
took no account of the temporal agonies inflicted to 
ensure it. 

" My father is innocent of any sin against the Faith," 
said she. 

" Are you so sure r " croaked the harsh voice of Ojeda^ 
breaking in. " Consider well. Remember that your 
duty as a Christian is above your duty as a daughter." 

Almost had she bluntly demanded the name of her 
father's accuser, that thus she might reach the object of 
her visit. Betimes she checked the rash impulse, perceiving 
that subtlety was here required ; that a direct question 
would close the door to all information. Skilfully, then, 
she chose her line of attack. 

" I am sure," she exclaimed, " that he is a more fervent 



70 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

and pious Christian — New-Christian though he be — than 
his accuser." 

The wistfulness faded from Torquemada's eyes. They 
grew keen, as became the eyes of an inquisitor, the eyes 
of a sleuth, quick to fasten on a spoor. But he shook his 
head. 

Ojeda advanced. " That I cannot beheve," said he. 
" The delation was made from a sense of duty so pure 
that the delator did not hesitate to confess the sin of his 
own commission through which he had discovered the 
treachery of Don Diego and his associates." 

She could have cried out in anguish at this answer to 
her unspoken question. Yet she controlled herself, and 
that no single doubt should Hnger, she thrust boldly home. 

" He confessed it ? " she cried, seemingly aghast. The 
friar slowly nodded. " Don Rodrigo confessed ? " she 
insisted, as will the incredulous. 

Abruptly the friar nodded again; and as abruptly 
checked, recollecting himself. 

" Don Rodrigo ? " he echoed, and asked : " Who men- 
tioned Don Rodrigo ? " 

But it was too late. His assenting nod had betrayed 
the truth, had confirmed her worst fear. She swayed a 
little ; the room swam round her, she felt as she would 
swoon. Then blind indignation against that forsworn 
betrayer surged to revive her. If it was through her 
weakness and undutifulness that her father had been 
destroyed, through her strength should he be avenged, 
though in doing so she pulled down and destroyed herself; 

" And he confessed to his own sin ? " she was repeating 
slowly, ever on that musing, incredulous note. " He dared 
confess himself a Judaizer ? " 



The Hermosa Fembra 71 

" A Judaizer ! " Sheer horror now overspread the 
friar's grim countenance. " A Judaizer ! Don Rodrigo ? 
Oh, impossible ! " 

" But I thought you said he had confessed." 
" Why, yes, but . . . but not to that." Her pale lips 
smiled, sadly contemptuous. 

" I see. He set limits of prudence upon his confession. 
He left out his Judaizing practices. He did not tell you, 
for instance, that this delation was an act of revenge 
against me who refused to marry him, having discovered 
his unfaith, and fearing its consequences in this world 
and the next." 
Ojeda stared at her in sheer, incredulous amazement. 
And then Torquemada spoke : ** Do you say that Don 
Rodrigo de Cardona is a Judaizer ? Oh, it is unbelievable." 
"Yet I could give you evidence that should convince you." 
" Then so you shall. It is your sacred duty, lest you 
become an abettor of heresy, and yourself liable to the 
extreme penalty." 

It would be a half-hour later, perhaps, when she quitted 
the Convent of St. Paul to return home, with Hell in her 
heart, knowing in life no purpose but that of avenging the 
parent her folly had destroyed. As she was being carried 
past the Alcazar, she espied across the open space a tall, 
slim figure in black, in whom she recognized her lover, 
and straightway she sent the page who paced beside her 
litter to call him to her side. The summons surprised 
him after what had passed between them ; moreover, 
considering her father's present condition, he was reluctant 
to be seen in attendance upon the beautiful, wealthy 
Isabella de Susan. Nevertheless, urged on by curiosity, 
he went. 



72 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Her greeting increased his surprise. 

" I am in deep distress, Rodrigo, as you may judge/* 
she told him sadly. " You will have heard what has 
befallen my father ? " 

He looked at her sharply, yet saw nothing but love- 
liness rendered more appealing by sorrow. Clearly she 
did not suspect him of betrayal ; did not realize that an 
oath extorted by violence — and an oath, moreover, to be 
false to a sacred duty — could not be accounted binding. 

" I ... I heard of it an hour ago,*' he lied a thought 
unsteadily. " I ... I commiserate you deeply." 

" I deserve commiseration," answered she, " and so does 
my poor father, and those others. It is plain that 
amongst those he trusted there was a traitor, a spy, who 
went straight from that meeting to inform against them. 
If I but had a list it were easy to discover the betrayer. 
One need but ascertain who is the one of all who were 
present whose arrest has been omitted." Her lovely 
sorrowful eyes turned full upon him. " What is to become 
of me now, alone in the world r "i she asked him. " My 
father was my only friend." 

The subtle appeal of her did its work swiftly. Besides, 
he saw here a noble opportunity worth surely some Httle 
risk. 

" Your only friend ? " he asked her thickly. " Was 
there no one else ? Is there no one else, Isabella ? " 

" There was," she said, and sighed heavily. " But after 
what befell last night, when . . . You know what is in 
my mind. I was distraught then, mad with fear for this 
poor father of mine, so that I could not even consider 
his sin in its full heinousness, nor see how righteous was 
your intent to inform against him. Yet I am thankful 



The Hermosa Fembra 73 

that it was not by your delation that he was taken. The 
thought of that is to-day my only consolation." 

They had reached her house by now. Don Rodrigo put 
forth his arm to assist her to alight from her litter, and 
begged leave to accompany her within. But she denied 
him. 

" Not now — though I am grateful to you, Rodrigo. 
Soon, if you will come and comfort me, you may. I will 
send you word when I am more able to receive you — that isj 
if I am forgiven for . . ." 

" Not another word," he begged her. " I honour you 
for what you did. It is I who should sue to you for for- 
giveness." 

" You are very noble and generous, Don Rodrigo. 
God keep you ! " And so she left him. 

She had found him — ^had she but known it — a dejected^ 
miserable man in the act of reckoning up all that he had 
lost. In betraying Susan he had acted upon an impulse 
that sprang partly from rage, and partly from a sense of 
religious duty. In counting later the cost to himself, he 
cursed the folly of his rage, and began to wonder if such 
strict observance of reHgious duty*was really worth while 
to a man who had his way to make in the world. In 
short, he was in the throes of reaction. But now, in her 
unsuspicion, he found his hopes revive. She need never 
know. The Holy Office preserved inviolate secrecy on the 
score of delations — since to do otherwise might be to 
discourage delators — and there were no confrontations of 
accuser and accused, such as took place in temporal 
courts. Don Rodrigo left the Calle de Ataud better 
pleased with the world than he had been since morning. 
On the morrow he went openly to visit her ; but he was 



74 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

denied, a servant announcing her indisposed. This fretted 
him, damped his hopes, and thereby increased his longing. 
But on the next day he received from her a letter which 
made him the most ample amends : 

" RoDRiGo, — -There is a matter on which we must come 
early to an understanding. Should my poor father be 
convicted of heresy and sentenced, it follows that hi3 
property will be confiscated, since as the daughter of a 
convicted heretic I may not inherit. For myself I care 
little ; but I am concerned for you, Rodrigo, since if in 
spite of what has happened you would still wish to make 
me your wife, as you declared on Monday, it would be 
my wish to come to you well dowered. Now the inherit- 
ance which would be confiscated by the Holy Ofiice from 
the daughter of a heretic might not be so confiscated from 
the wife of a gentleman of Castile. I say no more. Con- 
sider this well, and decide as your heart dictates. I shall 
receive you to-morrow if you come to me. 

" Isabella." 

She bade him consider well. But the matter really 
needed little consideration. Diego de Susan was sure 
to go to the fire. His fortune was estimated at ten million 
maravedis. That fortune, it seemed, Rodrigo was given 
the chance to make his own by marrying the beautiful 
Isabella at once, before sentence came to be passed upon 
her father. The Holy Office might impose a fine, but 
would not go further where the inheritance of a Castilian 
nobleman of clean lineage was concerned. He was swayed 
between admiration of her shrewdness and amazement 
at his own good fortune. Also his vanity was immensely 
flattered. 



The Hermosa Fembra 75 

He sent her three lines to protest his undying love, 
and his resolve to marry her upon the morrow, and went 
next day in person, as she had bidden him, to carry out 
the resolve. 

She received him in the mansion's best room, a noble 
chamber furnished wdth a richness such as no other house 
in Seville could have boasted. She had arrayed herself 
for the interview with an almost wanton cunning that 
should enhance her natural endowments. Her high- 
waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice, was 
of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs 
and neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet 
of limpid diamonds, and through the heavy tresses of her 
bronze-coloured hair was coiled a string of lustrous pearls. 

Never had Don Rodrigo found her more desirable ; 
never had he felt so secure and glad in his possession of 
her. The quickening blood flushing now his clive face, 
he gathered her slim shapeliness into liis arms, kissing ii.rr 
cheek, her lips, her neck. 

" My pearl, my beautiful, my wife ! " he murmured, 
rapturously. Then added the impatient question : " The 
priest ? Where is the priest that shall make us one ? " 

Deep, unfathomable eyes locked up to meet his burning 
glance. Languorously she lay against his breast, and 
her red lips parted in a smile that maddened him. 

" You love me, Rodri2:c — in spite of all ? " 

" Love }^ou ! " It was a throbbing, strangled cry, 
an almost inarticulate ejaculation " Better than life 
— better than salvation." 

She fetched a sigh, as of deep content, and nestled 
closer. " Oh, I am glad — so glad — that your love for me 
is truly strong. I am about to put it to the test, perhaps." 



76 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

He held her very close. " What is this test, beloved ? *' 

" It is that I want this marriage knot so tied that it 
shall be indissoluble save by death." 

" Why, so do I," quoth he, who had so much to gain, 

" And, therefore, because after all, though I profess 
Christianity, there is Jewish blood in my veins, I would 
have a marriage that must satisfy even my father whea 
he regains his freedom, as I believe he will — for, after all, 
he is not charged with any sin against the faith." 

She paused, and he was conscious of a premonitory 
chill upon his ardour. 

" What do you mean ? " he asked her, and his voice 
was strained. 

" I mean — you'll not be angry with me ? — I mean 
that I would have us married not only by a Christian 
priest, and in the Christian manner, but also and first of 
all by a Rabbi, and in accordance with the Jewish 
rites." 

Upon the words, she felt his encircling arms turn Hmp, 
and relax their grip upon her, whereupon she clung to him 
the more tightly. 

" Rodrigo ! Rodrigo ! If you truly love me, if you truly 
want me, you'll not deny me this condition, for I swear 
to you that once I am your wife you shall never hear any- 
thing again to remind you that I am of Jewish blood." 

His face turned ghastly pale, his lips writhed and 
twitched, and beads of sweat stood out upon his brow. 

" My God ! " he groaned. " What do you ask ? I . . . 
I can't. It were a desecration, a defilement." 

She thrust him from her in a passion. " You regard 
it so ? You protest love, and in the very hour when I 
propose to sacrifice all to you, you will not make this little 



The Hermosa Fembra 77 

sacrifice for my sake, you even insult the faith that was my 
forbears', if it is not wholly mine. I misjudged you, else 
I had not bidden you here to-day. I think you had 
better leave me." 

Trembling, appalled, a prey to an ineffable tangle of 
emotion, he sought to plead, to extenuate his attitude, 
to move her from her own. He ranted torrentially, but 
in vain. She stood as cold and aloof as earlier she had 
been warm and clinging. He had proved the measure 
of his love. He could go his ways. 

The thing she proposed was to him, as he had truly said, 
a desecration, a defilement. Yet to have dreamed yourself 
master of ten million maravedis, and a matchless woman, 
is a dream not easily relinquished. There was enough 
cupidity in his nature, enough neediness in his condition, 
to make the realization of that dream worth the defile- 
ment of the abominable marriage rites upon which she 
insisted.. But fear remained where Christian scruples 
were already half-effaced. 

" You do not realize," he cried. " If it were known that 
I so much as contemplated this, the Holy Office would 
account it clear proof of apostasy, and send me to the 
fire." 

" If that were your only objection it were easily over- 
come," she informed him coldly. " For who should ever 
inform against you ? The Rabbi who is waiting above- 
stairs dare not for his own life's sake betray us, and who 
else will ever know ? " 

" You can be sure of that ? " 

He was conquered. But she played him yet awhile, 
compelling him in his turn to conquer the reluctance which 
his earlier hesitation had begotten in her, until it was he 



78 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

who pleaded insistently for this Jewish marriage that filled 
him with such repugnance. 

And so at last she yielded, and led him, up to that bower 
of hers in which the conspirators had m.et. 

" Where is the Rabbi ? " he asked impatiently, looking 
round that empty room, 

" I will summon him if you are quite sure that you desire 
him." 

" Sure ? Have I not protested enough ? Can you 
still doubt me ? " 

'* No," she said. She stood apart, conning him steadily. 
'^ Yet I would not have it supposed that you were in any 
way coerced to this." They were odd words ; but he 
heeded not their oddness. He was hardly master of the 
wits which in themselves were never of the brightest. 
*' I require you to declare that it is your own desire that 
our marriage should be solemnized in accordance with the 
Jewish rites and the law of Moses." 

And he, fretted now by impatience, anxious to have 
this thing done and ended, made answer hastily : 

" Why, to be sure I do declare it to be my wish that we 
should be so married — ^in the Jewish manner, and in 
accordance with the law of Moses. And now, where is 
the Rabbi ? " He caught a sound and saw a quiver in 
the tapestries that masked the door of the alcove. " Ah ! 
He is here, I suppose. . . ." 

He checked abruptly, and recoiled as from a blow, 
throwing up his hands in a convulsive gesture. The 
tapestry had been swept aside, and forth stepped not the 
Rabbi he expected, but a tall, gaunt man, stooping slightly 
at the shoulders, dressed in the white habit and black 
cloak'of the order of St. Dominic, his face lost in the shadows 



The Hermosa Fembra 79 

of a black cowl. Behind him stood two lay brothers of 
the order, two armed familiars of the Holy Office, dis- 
playing the white cross on their sable doublets. 

Terrified by that apparition, evoked, as it seemed, 
by those terribly damning words he had pronounced, 
Don Rodrigo stood blankly at gaze a moment, not even 
seeking to understand how this dread thing had come to 
pass. 

The friar pushed back his cowl, as he advanced, and 
displayed the tender, compassionate, infinitely wistful 
countenance of Frey Tomas de Torquemada. And 
infinitely compassionate and wistful came the voice of 
that deeply sincere and saintly man. 

" My son, I was told this of you — that you were a 
Judaizer — ^yet before I could bring myself to believe so 
incredible a thing in one of your lineage, I required the 
evidence of my own senses. Oh, my poor child, by what 
wicked counsels have you been led so far astray ? " The 
sweet, tender eyes of the inquisitor were luminous with 
unshed tears. Sorrowing pity shook his gentle voice. 

And then Don Rodrigo's terror changed to wrath, and 
this exploded. He flung out an arm towards Isabella 
in passionate denunciation. 

" It was that woman who bewitched and fooled and 
seduced me into this. It was a -trap she baited for my 
undoing." 

" It was, indeed. She had my consent to do so, to test 
the faith which I was told you lacked. Had your heart 
been free of heretical pravity the trap had never caught 
you ; had your faith been strong, my son, you could not 
have been seduced from loyalty to your Redeemer." 

" Father ! Hear me, I implore you ! " He flung down 



8o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

upon his knees, and held out [^ shaking, supplicating 
hands. 

" You shall be heard, my son. The Holy Office does not 
condemn any man unheard. But what hope can you put 
in protestations ? I had been told that your life was 
disorderly and vain, and I grieved that it should be so, 
trembled for you when I heard how wide you opened the 
gates of your soul to evil. But remembering that age and 
reason will often make good and penitent amends for the 
follies of early life, I hoped and prayed for you. Yet that 
you should Judaize — that you should be bound in wedlock 
by the unclean ties of Judaism — Oh ! " The melancholy 
voice broke off upon a sob, and Torquemada covered his 
pale face with his hands — long, white, emaciated, almost 
transparent hands. " Pray now, my child, for grace and 
strength," he exhorted. " Offer up the little temporal 
suffering that may yet be yours in atonement for your 
error, and so that your heart be truly contrite and penitent, 
you shall deserve salvation from that Divine Mercy which 
is boundless. You shall have my prayers, my son. I can 
do no more. Take him hence." 

On the 6th of February of that year 1481, Seville wit- 
nessed the first Auto de Fe, the sufferers being Diego de 
Susan, his fellow-conspirators, and Don Rodrigo de Car- 
dona. The function presented but little of the ghastly 
pomp that was soon to distinguish these proceedings. 
But the essentials were already present. 

In a procession headed by a Dominican bearing aloft 
the green Cross of the Inquisition, swathed in a veil of 
crepe, behind whom walked two by two the members of 
the Confraternity of St. Peter the Martyr, the famiHars 



The Hermosa Femhra 8i 

of the Holy Office, came the condemned, candle in hand, 
barefoot, in the ignominious yellow penitential sack. 
Hemmed about by halberdiers, they were paraded through 
the streets to the Cathedral, where Mass was said and a 
sermon of the faith preached to them by the stern Ojeda, 
Thereafter they were conveyed beyond the city to the 
meadows of Tablada, where the stake and faggots awaited 
them. 

Thus the perjured accuser perished in the same holo- 
caust with the accused. Thus was Isabella de Susan, 
known as la Hertnosa Femhra^ avenged by falseness upon 
the worthless lover who made her by falseness the instru- 
ment of her father's ruin. 

For herself, when all was over, she sought the refuge 
of a convent. But she quitted it without professing. 
The past gave her no peace, and she returned to the world 
to seek in excesses an oblivion which the cloister denied 
her and only death could give. In her will she disposed 
that her skull should be placed over the doorway of the 
house in the Calle de Ataud, as a measure of posthumous 
atonement for her sins. And there the fleshless, grinning 
skull of that once lovely head abode for close upon four 
hundred years. It was still to be seen there when Buona- 
parte's legions demoHshed the Holy Office of the Inquisi- 
tion. 



IV. The Pastry -cook of Madrigal 

The Story of the False Sebastian of 
Portugal 



IV. The Pas try -cook of Madrigal 



THERE is not in all that bitter tragi-comic record of 
human frailty which we call History a sadder story 
than this of the Princess Anne, the natural daughter of 
the splendid Don John of Austria, natural son of the 
Emperor Charles V. and, so, half-brother to the bowelless 
King Philip H. of Spain. Never was woman born to 
royal or semi-royal state who was more utterly the victim 
of the circumstances of her birth. 

Of the natural sons of princes something could be made, 
as witness the dazzHng career of Anne's own father ; but 
for natural daughters — and especially for one who, like 
herself, bore a double load of cadency — there was little 
use or hope. Their royal blood set them in a class apart ; 
their bastardy denied them the worldly advantages 
of that spurious eminence. Their royal blood prescribed 
that they must mate with princes ; their bastardy 
raised obstacles to their doing so. Therefore, since the 
world would seem to hold no worthy place for them, it 
was expedient to withdraw them from the world before 
its vanities beglamoured them, and to immure them in 
convents, where they might aspire with confidence to the 
sterile dignity of abbesshood. 

Thus it befell with Anne. At the early age of six she had 

85 



85 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

been sent to the Benedictine convent at Burgos, and in 
adolescence removed thence to the Monastery of Santa 
Maria la Real at Madrigal, where it was foreordained that 
she should take the veil. She went unwillingly. She had 
youth, and youth's hunger of life, and not even the re- 
pressive conditions in which she had been reared had 
succeeded in extinguishing her high spirit or in concealing 
from her the fact that she was beautiful. On the threshold 
of that convent which by her dread uncle's will was to be 
her living tomb, above whose gates her spirit may have 
beheld the inscription, " Lasciate ogni speranza, voi 
cV entrate ! " she made her protest, called upon the bishop 
who accompanied her to bear witness that she did not go 
of her own free will. 

But what she willed was a matter of no account. King 
Philip's was, under God's, the only will in Spain. Still, 
less perhaps to soften the sacrifice imposed upon her than 
because of what he accounted due to one of his own blood, 
his Catholic Majesty accorded her certain privileges unusual 
to members of religious communities : he granted her a 
little civil list — two ladies-in-waiting and two grooms — 
and conferred upon her the title of Excellency, which she 
still retained even when after her hurried novitiate of a 
single year she had taken the veil. She submitted where 
to have striven would have been to have spent herself 
in vain ; but her resignation was only of the body, and 
this dejected body moved mechanically through the tasks 
and recreations that go to make up the grey monotone 
of conventual existence ; in which one day is as another 
day, one hour as another hour ; in which the seasons 
of the year lose their significance ; in which time has no 
purpose save for its subdivision into periods devoted to 



TJie Pastry-cook of Madrigal 87 

sleeping and waking, to eating and fasting, to praying and 
contemplating, until life loses all purpose and object, and 
sterilizes itself into preparation for death. 

Though they might command and compel her body, 
her spirit remained unfettered in rebellion. Anon the 
claustral apathy might encompass her ; in time and by 
slow degrees she might become absorbed into the grey 
spirit of the place. But that time was not yet. For the 
present she must nourish her caged and starving soul 
with memories of glimpses caught in passing of the bright, 
active, stirring world without ; and where memory stopped 
she had now beside her a companion to regale her with 
tales of high adventure and romantic deeds and knightly 
feats, which served but to feed and swell her yearnings. 

This companion, Frey Miguel de Souza, was a Portu- 
guese friar of the order of St. Augustine, a learned, courtly 
man who had moved in the great world and spoke with 
the authority of an eye-witness. And above all he loved 
to talk of that last romantic King of Portugal, with whom 
he had been intimate, that high-spirited, headstrong, 
gallant, fair-haired lad Sebastian, who at the age of four- 
and-twenty had led the disastrous overseas expedition 
against the Infidel, which had been shattered on the field 
of Alcacer-el-Kebir some fifteen years ago. 

He loved to paint for her in words the dazzHng knightly 
pageants he had seen along the quays at Lisbon, when that 
expedition was embarking with crusader ardour, the files 
of Portuguese knights and men-at-arms, the array of 
German and ItaHan mercenaries, the young king in his 
bright armour, bare of head — an incarnation of St. Michael 
— moving forward exultantly amid flowers and acclama» 
tions to take ship for Africa. And she would listen with 



88 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

parted lips and glistening eyes, her slim body bending 
forward in her eagerness to miss no word of this great 
epic. Anon when he came to tell of that disastrous day 
of Alcacer-el-Kebir, her dark, eager eyes would fill with 
tears. His tale of it was hardly truthful. He did not 
say that military incompetence and a presumptuous vanity 
which would listen to no counsels had been the cause: of 
a ruin that had engulfed the chivalry of Portugal, and 
finally the very kingdom itself. He represented the defeat 
as due to the overwhelming numbers of the Infidel, and 
dwelt at length upon the closing scene, told her in fullest 
detail how Sebastian had scornfully rejected the counsels 
of those who urged him to fly when all was lost, how the 
young king, who had fought with a lion-hearted courage, 
unwilling to survive the day's defeat, had turned and 
ridden back alone into the Saracen host to fight his last 
fight and find a knightly death. Thereafter he was seen 
no more. 

It was a tale she never tired of hearing, and it moved 
her more and more deeply each time she listened to it. 
She would ply him with questions touching this Sebastian, 
who had been her cousin, concerning his ways of life, 
his boyhood, and his enactments when he came to the 
crown of Portugal. And all that Frey Miguel de Souza 
told her served but to engrave more deeply upon her virgin 
mind the adorable image of the knightly king. Ever 
present in the daily thoughts of this ardent girl, his em- 
panoplied figure haunted now her sleep, so real and vivid 
that her waking senses would dwell fondly upon the dream- 
figure as upon the memory of someone seen in actual 
life ; likewise she treasured up the memory of the dream- 
words he had uttered, words it would seem begotten of 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 89 

the longings of her starved and empty heart, words of a 
kind not calculated to bring peace to the soul of a nun 
professed. She was enamoured, deeply, fervently, and 
passionately enamoured of a myth, a mental image of a 
man who had been dust these fifteen years. She mourned 
him with a fond widow's mourning ; prayed daily and 
nightly for the repose of his soul, and in her exaltation 
waited now almost impatiently for death that should unite 
her with him. Taking joy in the thought that she should 
go to him a maid, she ceased at last to resent the maiden- 
hood that had been imposed upon her. 

One day a sudden, wild thought filled her with a strange 
excitement. 

" Is it so certain that he is dead ? " she asked. " When 
all is said, none actually saw him die, and you tell me 
that the body surrendered by Mulai-Ahmed-ben-Mahomet 
was disfigured beyond recognition. Is it not possible that 
he may have survived ? " 

The lean, swarthy face of Frey Miguel grew pensive. 
He did not impatiently scorn the suggestion as she had 
half-feared he would. 

" In Portugal," he answered slowly, " it is firmly believed 
that he lives, and that one day he will come, like another 
Redeemer, to deliver his country from the thrall of Spain." 

" Then . . . then . . ." 

Wistfully, he smiled. " A people will always believe 
what it wishes to believe." 

*' But you, yourself ? " she pressed him. 

He did not answer her at once. The cloud of thought 
deepened on his ascetic face. He half turned from her — 
they were standing in the shadow of the fretted cloisters 
— and his pensive eyes roamed over the wide quadrangle 



go The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

that was at once the convent garden and burial ground. 
Out there in the sunshine amid the hum of invisible but 
ubiquitously pulsating life, three nuns, young and vigorous, 
their arms bared to the elbows, the skirts of their black 
habits shortened by a cincture of rope, revealing feet 
roughly shod in wood, were at work with spade and 
mattock, digging their own graves in mejnento mori. Amid 
the shadows of the cloisters, within sight but beyond 
earshot, hovered Dona Maria de Grado and Dona Luiza 
Nieto, the two nobly-born nuns appointed by King Philip 
to an office as nearly akin to that of ladies-in-waiting as 
claustral conditions would permit. 

At length Frey Miguel seemed to resolve himself. 

" Since you ask me, why should I not tell you ? When 
I was on my way to preach the funeral oration in the 
Cathedral at Lisbon, as befitted one who had been Don 
Sebastian's preacher, I was warned by a person of 
eminence to have a care of what I said of Don Sebastian, 
for not only was he alive, but he would be secretly present 
at the Requiem." 

He met her dilating glance, noted the quivering of her 
parted lips. 

*• But that," he added, '^ was fifteen years ago, and since 
then I have had no sign. At first I thought it possible . . . 
there was a story afloat that might have been true . . . 
But fifteen years ! " He sighed, and shook his head. 

'^ What . . . what was the story ? " She was trembling 
from head to foot. 

'* On the night after the battle three horsemen rode up 
to the gates of the fortified coast- town of Arzilla. When 
the timid guard refused to open to them, they announced 
that one of them was King Sebastian, and so won admit- 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 91 

tance. One of the three was wrapped in a cloak, his 
face concealed, and his two companions were observed to 
show him the deference due to royalty." 
" Why, then . . ." she was beginning. 

" Ah, but afterwards," he interrupted her, " after- 
wards, when all Portugal was thrown into commotion by 
that tale, it was denied that King Sebastian had been 
among these horsemen. It was affirmed to have been no 
more than a ruse of those men's to gain the shelter of the 
city." 

She questioned and cross-questioned him upon that, 
seeking to draw from him the admission that it was possible 
denial and explanation obeyed the wishes of the hidden 
prince. 

" Yes, it is possible," he admitted at length, " and it 
is believed by many to be the fact. Don Sebastian was 
as sensitive as high-spirited. The shame of his defeat 
may have hung so heavily upon him that he preferred to 
remain in hiding, and to sacrifice a throne of which he 
now felt himself unworthy. Half Portugal believes it so, 
and waits and hopes." 

When Frey Miguel parted from her that day, he took 
with him the clear conviction that not in all Portugal was 
there a soul who hoped more fervently than she that Don 
Sebastian lived, or yearned more passionately to acclaim 
him should he show himself. And that was much to 
think, for the yearning of Portugal was as the yearning 
of the slave for freedom. 

Sebastian's mother was King Philip's sister, whereby 
King Philip had claimed the succession, and taken pos- 
session of the throne of Portugal. Portugal writhed under 
the oppressive heel of that foreign rule, and Frey Miguel 



92 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

de Souza himself, a deeply, passionately patriotic man, 
had been foremost among those who had sought to liberate 
her. When Don Antonio, the sometime Prior of Crato, 
Sebastian's natural cousin, and a bold, ambitious, enter- 
prising man, had raised the standard of revolt, the friar 
had been the most active of all his coadjutators. In those 
days Frey Miguel, who was the Provincial of his order, a 
man widely renowned for his learning and experience of 
affairs, who^'had been preacher to Don Sebastian and 
confessor to Don Antonio, had wielded a vast influence 
in Portugal. That influence he had unstintingly exerted 
on behalf of the Pretender, to whom he was profoundly 
devoted. AiXti Don Antonio's army had been defeated 
on land by the Duke of Alba, and his fleet shattered in the 
Azores in 1582 by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, Frey Miguel 
found himself deeply compromised by his active share in 
the rebellion. He was arrested and suffered a long 
imprisonment in Spain. In the end, because he expressed 
repentance, and because Philip II., aware of the man's 
gifts and worth, desired to attach him to himself by grati- 
tude, he was enlarged, and appointed Vicar of Santa Maria 
la Real, where he w^as now become confessor, counsellor 
and confidant of the Princess Anne of Austria. 

But his gratitude to King Philip was not of a kind 
to change his nature, to extinguish his devotion to the 
Pretender, Don Antonio — who, restlessly ambitious, con- 
tinued ceaselessly to plot abroad — or yet to abate the 
fervour of his patriotism. The dream of his Hfe was ever 
the independence of Portugal, with a native prince upon 
the throne. x\nd because of Anne's fervent hope, a hope 
that grew almost daily into conviction, that Sebastian 
had survived and would return one day to claim his king- 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 93 

dom, those two at Madrigal, in that quiet eddy of the 
great stream of Hfe, were drawn more closely to each 
other. 

But as the years passed, and Anne's prayers remained 
unanswered and the deliverer did not come, her hopes 
began to fade again. Gradually she reverted to her earlier 
frame of mind in which all hopes were set upon a reunion 
with the unknown beloved in the world to come. 

One evening in the spring of 1594 — four years after 
the name of Sebastian had first passed between the priest 
and the princess — Frey Miguel was walking down the 
main street of Madrigal, a village whose every inhabitant 
was known to him, when he came suddenly face to face 
with a stranger. A stranger would in any case have 
drawn his attention, but there was about this man some- 
thing familiar to the friar, something that stirred in him 
vague memories of things long forgotten. His garb of 
shabby black was that of a common townsman, but there 
was something in his air and glance, his soldierly carriage, 
and the tilt of his bearded chin, that beUed his garb. He 
bore upon his person the stamp of intrepidity and 
assurance. 

Both halted, each staring at the other, a faint smile on 
the lips of the stranger — who, in the fading light, might 
have been of any age from thirty to fifty — a puzzled frown 
upon the brow of the friar. Then the man swept off his 
broad-brimmed hat. 

" God save your paternity," was his greeting. 

"God save you, my son," replied Frey Miguel, still 
pondering him. " I seem to know you. Do I ? " 

The stranger laughed. " Though all the world forget, 
your paternity should remember me." 



94 Tlie Historical Nights' Entertainment 

And then Frey Miguel sucked in his breath sharply. 
" My God ! " he cried, and set a hand upon the fellow's 
shoulder, looking deeply into those bold, grey eyes. " What 
make you here ? " 

" I am a pastry-cook." 

" A pastry-cook ? You \ " 

" One must live, and it is a more honest trade than 
most. I was in Valiadolid, when I heard that your 
paternity was the Vicar of the Convent here, and so for 
the sake of old times — of happier times — I bethought me 
that I might claim your paternity's support." He spoke 
with a careless arrogance, half-tinged with mockery. 

" Assuredly . . ." began the priest, and then he checked. 
" Where is your shop t " 

" Just down the street. Will your paternity honour 
me?" 

Frey Miguel bowed, and together they departed. 

For three days thereafter the convent saw the friar 
only in the celebration of the Mass. But on the morning 
of the fourth, he went straight from the sacristy to the 
parlour, and, despite the early hour, desired to see her 
Excellency. 

" Lady," he told her, " I have great news ; news that 
will rejoice your heart." She looked at him, and saw the 
feverish glitter in his sunken eyes, the hectic flush on his 
prominent cheek-bones. " Don Sebastian Hves. I have 
seen him." 

A moment she stared at him as if she did not understand. 
Then she paled until her face became as white as the nun's 
coif upon^her brow ; her breath came in a faint moan, 
she stiffened, and swayed upon her feet, and caught at 
the back of a prie-dieu to steady and save herself from 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 95 

falling. He saw that he had blundered by his abruptness, 
that he had failed to gauge the full depth of her feelings 
for the Hidden Prince, and for a moment feared that 
she would swoon under the shock of the news he had so 
recklessly delivered. 

" What do you say ? Oh, what do you say ? " she 
moaned, her eyes half-closed. 

He repeated the news in more measured, careful terms, 
exerting all the magnetism of his will to sustain her reeling 
senses. Gradually she quelled the storm of her emotions. 

" And you say that you have seen him ? Oh ! " Once 
more the colour suffused her cheeks, and her eyes glowed, 
her expression became radiant. " Where is he ? " 

" Here. Here in Madrigal." 

" In Madrigal ? " She v/as all amazement. " But 
why in Madrigal } " 

" He was in Valladolid, and there heard that I — ^his 
sometime preacher and counsellor — was Vicar here at 
Santa Maria la Real. He came to seek me. He comes 
disguised, under the false name of Gabriel de Espinosa, 
and setting up as a pastry-cook until his term of penance 
shall be completed, and he shall be free to disclose himself 
once more to his impatiently awaiting people." 

It was bewildering, intoxicating news to her. It set 
her mind in turmoil, made of her soul a battle-ground for 
mad hope and dreadful fear. This dream-prince, who for 
four years had been the constant companion of her 
thoughts, whom her exalted, ardent, imaginative, starved 
soul had come to love with a consuming passion, was a 
living reality near at hand, to be seen in the flesh by the 
eyes of her body. It was a thought that set her in an 
ecstasy of terror, so that she dared not ask Frey Miguel 



qG The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

to bring Don Sebastian to her. But she plied him v/ith 
questions, and so elicited from him a very circumstantial 
story. 

Sebastian, after his defeat and escape, had made a 
vow upon the Holy Sepulchre to lay aside the royal 
dignity of which he deemed that he had proved himself 
unworthy, and to do penance for the pride that had 
brought him down, by roaming the world in humble guise, 
earning his bread by the labour of his hands and the 
sweat of his brow like any common hind, until he should 
have purged his offence and rendered himself worthy once 
more to resume the estate to which he had been born. 

It was a tale that moved her pity to the point of tears. 
It exalted her hero even beyond the eminence he had 
already held in her fond dreams, particularly when to that 
general outline were added in the days that followed 
details of the wanderings and sufferings of the Hidden 
Prince. At last, some few weeks after that first startling 
announcement of his presence, in the early days of August 
of that year 1594, Frey Miguel proposed to her the thing 
she most desired, yet dared not beg. 

"I have told His Majesty of your attachment to his 
memory in all these years in which we thought him dead, 
and he is deeply touched. He desires your leave to come 
and prostrate himself at your feet." 

She crimsoned from brow to chin, then paled again ; 
her bosom heaved in tumult. Between dread and yearn- 
ing she spoke a faint consent. 

Next day he came, brought by Frey Miguel to the 
convent parlour, where her Excellency waited, her two 
attendant nuns discreetly in the background. Her eager, 
frightened eyes beheld a man of middle height, dignified 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 97 

of mien and carriage, dressed with extreme simplicity, 
yet without the shabbiness in which Frey Miguel had 
first discovered him. 

His hair was of a light brown — the colour to which the 
golden locks of the boy who had sailed for Africa some 
fifteen years ago might well have faded — his beard of an 
auburn tint, and his eyes were grey. His face was hand- 
some, and save for the colour of his eyes and the high arch 
of his nose presented none of the distinguishing and 
marring features peculiar to the House of Austria, from 
which Don Sebastian derived through his mother. 

Hat in hand, he came forward, and went down on one 
knee before her. 

" I am here to receive your Excellency's commands," 
he said. 

She steadied her shuddering knees and trembling lips. 

" Are you Gabriel de Espinosa, who has come to Madrigal 
to set up as a pastry-cook ? " she asked him. 

" To serve your Excellency." 

" Then be welcome, though I am sure that the trade 
you least understand is that of a pastry-cook." 

The kneeling man bowed his handsome head, and 
fetched a deep sigh. 

" If in the past I had better understood another trade, 
I should not now be reduced to following this one." 

She urged him now to rise, whereafter the enter- 
tainment between them was very brief on that first 
occasion. He departed upon a promise to come soon 
again, and the undertaking on her side to procure for his 
shop the patronage of the convent. 

Thereafter it became his custom to attend the morning 
Mass celebrated by Frey Miguel in the convent chapel — 

7 



gS The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

which was open to the public — and afterwards to seek the 
friar in the sacristy and accompany him thence to the 
convent parlour, where the Princess waited, usually with 
one or another of her attendant nuns. These daily inter- 
views were brief at first, but gradually they lengthened 
until they came to consume the hours to dinner-time, and 
presently even that did not suffice, and Sebastian must 
come again later in the day. 

And as the interviews increased and lengthened, so 
they grew also in intimacy between the royal pair, and 
plans for Sebastian's future came to be discussed. She 
urged him to proclaim himself. His penance had been 
overlong already for what was really no fault at all, since 
it is the heart rather than the deed that Heaven judges 
and his heart had been pure, his intention in making war 
upon the Infidel loftily pious. Diffidently he admitted 
that it might be so, but both he and Frey Miguel were of 
opinion that it would be wiser now to await the death of 
Philip n., which, considering his years and infirmities^ 
could not be long delayed. Out of jealousy for his pos- 
sessions, King Philip might oppose Sebastian's claims. 

Meanwhile these daily visits of Espinosa's, and the long 
hours he spent in Anne's company gave, as was inevitable, 
rise to scandal, within and without the convent. She 
was a nun professed, interdicted from seeing any man but 
her confessor other than through the parlour grating, and 
even then not at such length or with such constancy as 
this. The intimacy between them — fostered and furthered 
by Frey Miguel — ^had so ripened in a few weeks that 
Anne was justified in looking upon him as her saviour 
from the living tomb to which she had been condemned, 
in hoping: that he would restore her to the life and liberty 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 99 

for which she had ever yearned by taking her to Queen 
when his time came to claim his own. What if she was a 
nun professed r Her profession had been against her 
will, preceded by only one year of novitiate, and she was 
still within the five probationary years prescribed. There- 
fore, in her view, her vows were revocable. 

But this was a matter beyond the general consideration 
or knowledge, and so the scandal grew. Within the con- 
vent there was none bold enough, considering Anne's 
royal rank, to offer remonstrance or advice, particularly 
too, considering that her behaviour had the sanction of 
Frey Miguel, the convent's spiritual adviser. But from 
without, from the Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine, 
came at last a letter to Anne, respectfully stern in tone, 
to inform her that the numerous visits she received 
from a pastry-cook were giving rise to talk, for which it 
would be wise to cease to give occasion. That recom- 
mendation scorched her proud, sensitive soul with shame. 
She sent her servant Roderos at once to fetch Frey Miguel, 
and placed the letter in his hands. 

The friar's dark eyes scanned it and grew troubled. 

" It was to have been feared," he said, and sighed. 
" There is but one remedy, lest worse follow and all be 
ruined. Don Sebastian must go." 

" Go ? " Fear robbed her of breath. " Go where ? " 

" Away from Madrigal — anywhere — and at once ; to- 
morrow at latest," And then, seeing the look of horror 
in her face, " What else, what else ? " he added, im- 
patiently. " This meddlesome provincial may be stirring 
up trouble already." 

She fought down her emotion. " I ... I shall see him 
before he goes ? " she begged. 

7* 



100 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

*' I don't know. It may not be wise. I must con- 
sider." He flung away in deepest perturbation, leaving 
her with a sense that Hfe was slipping from her. 

That late September evening, as she sat stricken in her 
room, hoping against hope for at least another glimpse of 
him. Dona Maria de Grado brought word that Espinosa 
was even then in the convent in Frey Miguel's cell. Fear- 
ful lest he should be smuggled thence without her seeing 
him, and careless of the impropriety of the hour— it v^as 
already eight o'clock and dusk was falling — she at once 
dispatched Roderos to the friar, bidding him bring Espinosa 
to her in the parlour. 

The friar obeyed, and the lovers — they were no less hy 
now — came face to face in anguish. 

'' My lord, my lord," she cried, casting all prudence to 
the winds, " what is decided .? " 

" That I leave in the morning," he answered. 
" To go where ? " She was distraught. 
" Where ? " He shrugged. ** To ValladoUd at first, 
and then . . . where God pleases." 
" And when shall I see you again ? " 
" When . . . when God pleases." 

" Oh, I am terrified ... if I should lose you ... if I 
should never see you more ! " She was panting, distraught. 
" Nay, lady, nay," he answered. " I shall come for you 
when the time is ripe. I shall return by All Saints, or hy 
Christmas at the latest, and I shall bring with me one who 
will avouch me." 

" What need any to avouch you to me ? " she protested, 
on a note of fierceness. " We belong to each other, you 
and I. But you are free to roam the world, and I am caged 
here and helpless. ..." 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal loi 

" Ah, but I shall free you soon, and we'll go hence to- 
gether. See." He stepped to the table. There was an. 
ink-horn, a box of pounce, some quills, and a sheaf of paper 
there. He took up a quill, and wrote — with labour, for 
princes are notoriously poor scholars : 

" /, Don Sebastian, by the Grace oj God King oj Portu- 
gal, take to wije the most serene Dona Ana oj Austria^ 
daughter oj the most serene Prince, Don John oj Austria, 
by xdrtue oj the dispensation zvhich I holdjrom tzvo pontijfs.^* 

And he signed it — after the manner of the Kings of Portu- 
gal in all ages — " El Rey " — the King. 

'•' Will that content you, lady ? " he pleaded, handing 
it to her. 

'* How shall this scrawl content me ? " 

*' It is a bond I shall redeem as soon as Heaven will 
permit." 

Thereafter she fell to -weeping, and he to protesting, until 
Frey Miguel urged him to depart, as it grew late. And then 
she forgot her own grief, and became all solicitude for him, 
until naught would content her but she must empty into 
his hands her little store of treasure — a hundred ducats and 
such jewels as she possessed, including a gold watch set 
with diamonds and a ring bearing a cameo portrait of 
King Philip, and last of all a portrait of herself, of the size 
of a playing-card. 

At last, as ten was striking, he was hurried away. Frey 
Miguel had gone on his knees to him, and kissed his hand, 
what time he had passionately urged him not to linger ; 
and then Sebastian had done the same by the Princess, 
both weeping now. At last he was gone, and on the arm of 



102 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Dona Maria de Grado the forlorn Anne staggered back to 
her cell to weep and pray. 

In the days that followed she moved, pale and listless, 
oppressed by her sense of loss and desolation, a desolation 
which at last she sought to mitigate by writing to him to 
Valladolid, whither he had repaired. Of all those letters 
only two survive. 

" My king and lord," she wrote in one of these, " alas ! 
How we suffer by absence ! I am so filled with the pain of 
it that if I did not seek the relief of writing to your Majesty 
and thus spend some moments in communion with you, 
there would be an end to me. What I feel to-day is what I 
feel every day when I recall the happy moments so deli- 
ciously spent, which are no more. This privation is for 
me so severe a punishment of heaven that I should call it 
imjust, for without cause I find myself deprived of the 
happiness missed by me for so many years and purchased 
at the price of suffering and tears. Ah, my lord, how 
willingly, nevertheless, would I not suffer all over again 
the misfortunes that have crushed me if thus I might spare 
your Majesty the least of them. May He who rules the 
world grant my prayers and set a term to so great an un- 
happiness, and to the intolerable torment I suffer through 
being deprived of the presence of your Majesty. It were 
impossible for long to suffer so much pain and live. 

" I belong to you, my lord ; you know it already. The 
troth I plighted to you I shall keep in life and in death, for 
death itself could not tear it from my soul, and this im- 
mortal soul will harbour it through eternity. . . .". 

Thus and much more in the same manner wrote the niece 
of King Philip of Spain to Gabriel Espinosa, the pastry- 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 103 

cook, in his Valladolid retreat. How he filled his days we 
do not know, beyond the fact that he moved freely abroad. 
For it was in the streets of that town that meddlesome Fate 
brought him face to face one day with Gregorio Gonzales, 
under whom Espinosa had been a scullion once in the 
service of the Count of Nyeba. 

Gregorio hailed him, staring round-eyed ; for although 
Espinosa's garments were not in their first freshness they 
were far from being those of a plebeian. 

" In whose service may you be now ? " quoth the 
intrigued Gregorio, so soon as greetings had passed between 
them. 

Espinosa shook off his momentary embarrassment, and 
took the hand of his sometime comrade. " Times are 
changed, friend Gregorio. I am not in anybody's service, 
rather do I require servants myself." 

" Why, what is your present situation ? " 
Loftily Espinosa put him off. " No matter for that," 
he answered, with a dignity that forbade further questions. 
He gathered his cloak about him to proceed upon his way. 
" If there is anything you wish for I shall be happy, for 
old times' sake, to oblige you." 

But Gregorio was by no means disposed to part from him. 
We do not readily part from an old friend whom we re- 
discover in an unsuspected state of affluence. Espinosa must 
home with Gregorio. Gregorio's wife would be charmed 
to renew his acquaintance, and to hear from his own lips 
of his improved and prosperous state. Gregorio would 
take no refusal, and in the end Espinosa, yielding to his 
insistence, went with him to the sordid quarter where 
Gregorio had his dwelling. 

About an unclean table of pine, in a squalid room, sat 



104 ^^^^ Historical Nights' Entertainment 

the three — Espinosa, Gregorio, and Gregorio's wife ; but 
the latter displayed none of the signs of satisfaction at 
Espinosa's prosperity which Gregorio had promised. 
Perhaps Espinosa observed her evil envy, and it may have 
been to nourish it — which is the surest way to punish 
envy — that he made Gregorio a magnificent offer of em- 
ployment. 

" Enter my service," said he, " and I will pay you fifty 
ducats down and four ducats a month." 

Obviously they were incredulous of his affluence. To 
convince them he displayed a gold watch — most rare 
possession— set with diamonds, a ring of price, and other 
costly jewels. The couple stared now with dazzled eyes. 

" But didn't you tell me when we were in Madrid to- 
gether that you had been a pastry-cook at Ocana r " burst 
from Gregorio. 

Espinosa smiled. " How many kings and princes have 
been compelled to conceal themselves under disguises r " 
he asked oracularly. And seeing them stricken, he must 
play upon them further. Nothing, it seems, was sacred to 
him — -not even the portrait of that lovely, desolate royal 
lady in her convent at Madrigal. Forth he plucked it, 
and thrust it to them across the stains of wine and oil that 
befouled their table. 

" Look at this beautiful lady, the most beautiful in 
Spain," he bade them. " A prince could not have a lovelier 
bride." 

" But she is dressed as a nun," the woman protested. 
" How, then, can she marry r " 

" For kings there are no laws," he told her with 
finality. 

At last he departed, but bidding Gregorio to think of the 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 105 

offer he had made him. He would come again for the 
cook^s reply, leaving word meanwhile of where he was 
lodged. 

They deemed him mad, and were disposed to be derisive. 
Yet the woman's disbelief was quickened into malevolence 
by the jealous fear that what he had told them of himself 
might, after all, be true. Upon that malevolence she acted 
forthwith, lodging an information with Don Rodrigo de 
Santillan, the Alcalde of Valladolid. 

Very late that night Espinosa was roused from his sleep 
to find his room invaded by alguaziles — the police of the 
Alcalde. He was arrested and dragged before Don 
Rodrigo to give an account of himself and of certain objects 
of value found in his possession — more particularly of a ring, 
on the cameo of which was carved a portrait of King Philip. 

" I am^ Gabriel de Espinosa," he answered firmly, " a 
pastry-cook of Madrigal." 

" Then how come you by these jewels r " 

" They were given me by Dona Ana of Austria to sell 
for her account. That is the business that has brought me 
to Valladolid." 

'• Is this Dona Ana's portrait ? " 

" It is." 

" And this lock of hair ? Is that also Dona Ana's t 
And do you, then, pretend that these were also given you 
to sell ? " 

" Why else should they be given me ? " 

Don Rodrigo wondered. They were useless things to 
steal, and as for the lock of hair, where should the fellow 
find a buyer for that r The Alcalde conned his man more 
closely, and noted that dignity of bearing, that calm 
assurance which usually is founded upon birth and worth. 



io6 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

He sent him to wait in prison, what time he w^ent to ran- 
sack the fellow's house in Madrigal. 

Don Rodrigo was prompt in acting ; yet even so his 
prisoner mysteriously found means lo send a warning that 
enabled Frey Miguel to forestall the Alcalde. Before Don 
Rodrigo's arrival, the friar had abstracted from Espinosa's 
house a box of papers which he reduced to ashes. Unfortu- 
nately Espinosa had been careless. Four letters not con- 
fided to the box were discovered by the alguaziles. Two 
of them w^ere from Anne — one of which supplies the extract 
I have given ; the other two from Frey Miguel himself. 

Those letters startled Don Rodrigo de Santillan. He was 
a shrewd reasoner and well-informed. He knew how the 
justice of Castile was kept on the alert by the persistent 
plottings of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio, 
sometime Prior of Crato. He was intimate with the past 
life of Frey Miguel, knew his self-sacrificing patriotism 
and passionate devotion to the cause of Don Antonio, 
remembered the firm dignity of his prisoner, and leapt at a 
justifiable conclusion. The man in his hands — the man 
whom the Princess Anne addressed in such passionate terms 
by the title of Majesty — was the Prior of Crato. He con- 
ceived that he had stumbled here upon something grave 
and dangerous. He ordered the arrest of Frey Miguel, 
and then proceeded to visit Dona Ana at the convent. His 
methods were crafty, and depended upon the effect of 
surprise. He opened the interview by holding up before 
her one of the letters he had found, asking her if she 
acknowledged it for her own. 

She stared a moment panic-stricken ; then snatched it 
from his hands, tore it across, and would have torn again, 
but that he caught her wrists in a grip of iron to prevent her. 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 107 

with little regard in that moment for the blood royal in 
her veins. King Philip was a stern master, pitiless to 
blunderers, and Don Rodrigo knew he never would be 
forgiven did he suffer that precious letter to be destroyed. 

Overpowered in body and in spirit, she surrendered the 
fragments and confessed the letter her own. 

" What is the real name of this man, who calls himself 
a pastry-cook, and to whom you write in such terms as 
these ? " quoth the magistrate. 

" He is Don Sebastian, King of Portugal." And to that 
declaration she added briefly the story of his escape from 
Alcacer-el-Kebir and subsequent penitential wanderings. 

Don Rodrigo departed, not knowing what to think or 
believe, but convinced that it was time he laid the whole 
matter before King Philip. His Catholic Majesty was 
deeply perturbed. He at once dispatched Don Juan de 
Llano, the Apostolic Commissary of the Holy Office to 
Madrigal to sift the matter, and ordered that Anne should 
be solitarily confined in her cell, and her nuns-in-waiting 
and servants placed under arrest. 

Espinosa, for greater security, was sent from Valladolid 
to the prison of Medina del Campo. He was taken thither 
in a coach with an escort of arquebusiers. 

" Why convey a poor pastry-cook with so much honour ? '' 
he asked his guards, half-mockingly. 

Within the coach he was accompanied by a soldier 
named Cervatos, a travelled man, who fell into talk with 
him, and discovered that he spoke both French and 
German fluently. But when Cervatos addressed him in 
Portuguese the prisoner seemed confused, and replied 
that although he had been in Portugal, he could not speak 
the language. 



io8 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Thereafter, throughout that winter, examinations of the 
three chief prisoners — Espinosa, Frey Miguel, and the 
Princess Anne — succeeded one another with a wearisome 
monotony of results. The Apostolic Commissary interro- 
gated the princess and Frey Miguel ; Don Rodrigo con- 
ducted the examinations of Espinosa. But nothing was 
elicited that took the matter forward or tended to dispel 
its mystery. 

The princess replied with a candour that became more 
and more tinged with indignation under the persistent and 
at times insulting interrogatories. She insisted that the 
prisoner was Don Sebastian, and wrote passionate letters 
to Espinosa, begging him for her honour's sake to proclaim 
himself what he really was, declaring to him that the time 
had come to cast off all disguise. 

Yet the prisoner, unmoved by these appeals, persisted 
that he was Gabriel de Espinosa, a pastry-cook. But the 
man's bearing, and the air of mystery cloaking him, seemed 
in themselves to behe that asseveration. That he could 
not be the Prior of Crato, Don Rodrigo had now assured 
himself. He fenced skilfully under examination, ever 
evading the magistrate's practised point when it sought to 
pin him, and he was no less careful to say nothing that 
should incriminate either of the other two prisoners. He 
denied that he had ever given himself out to be Don Sebas- 
tian, though he admitted that Frey Miguel and the princess 
had persuaded themselves that he was that lost prince. 

He pleaded ignorance when asked who were his parents, 
stating that he had never known either of them — an answer 
this which would have fitted the case of Don Sebastian, 
who was born after his father's death, and quitted in early 
infancy by his mother. 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 109 

As for Frey Miguel, he stated boldly under examination 
the conviction that Don Sebastian had survived the African 
expedition, and the belief that Espinosa might well be the 
missing monarch. He protested that he had acted in good 
faith throughout, and without any thought of disloyalty 
to the King of Spain. 

Late one night, after he had been some three months in 
prison, Espinosa was roused from sleep by an unexpected 
visit from the Alcalde. At once he would have risen and 
dressed. 

'' Nay," said Don Rodrigo, restraining him, " that is not 
necessary for what is intended." 

It was a dark phrase which the prisoner, sitting up in. 
bed with touzled hair, and blinking in the light of the 
torches, instantly interpreted into a threat of torture. His 
face grew white. 

" It is impossible," he protested. " The King cannot 
have ordered what you suggest. His Majesty will take 
into account that I am a man of honour. He may require 
my death, but in an honourable manner, and not upon the 
rack. And as for its being used to make me speak, I 
have nothing to add to what I have said already." 

The stern, dark face of the Alcalde was overspread by a 
grim smile. 

" I would have you remark that you fall into contra- 
dictions. Sometimes you pretend to be of humble and lowly 
origin, and sometimes a person of honourable degree. To 
hear you at this moment one might suppose that to submit 
you to torture would be to outrage your dignity. What 
then . . ." 

Don Rodrigo broke off suddenly to stare, then snatched 
a torch from the hand of his alguaziles and held it close to 



no The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

the face of the prisoner, who cowered now, knowing full 
well what it was the Alcalde had detected. In that strong 
light Don Rodrigo saw that the prisoner's hair and beard 
had turned grey at the roots, and so received the last proof 
that he had to do with the basest of impostures. The 
fellow had been using dyes, the supply of which had been 
cut short by his imprisonment. Don Rodrigo departed 
well-satisfied with the results of that surprise visit. 

Thereafter Espinosa immediately shaved himself. But 
it was too late, and even so, before many weeks were past 
his hair had faded to its natural grey, and he presented 
the appearance of what in fact he was — a man of sixty, 
or thereabouts. 

Yet the torture to which he was presently submitted 
drew nothing from him that could explain all that yet 
remained obscure. It was from Frey Miguel, after a thou- 
sand prevarications and tergiversations, that the full 
truth — known to himself alone — was extracted by the rack. 

He confessed that, inspired by the love of country and 
the ardent desire to Hberate Portugal from the Spanish 
yoke, he had never abandoned the hope of achieving this^ 
and of placing Don Antonio, the Prior of Crato, on the 
throne of his ancestors. He had devised a plan, primarily 
inspired by the ardent nature of the Princess Anne and 
her impatience of the conventual life. It was while casting 
about for the chief instrument that he fortuitously met 
Espinosa in the streets of Madrigal. Espinosa had been a 
soldier, and had seen the world. During the war between 
Spain and Portugal he had served in the armies of King 
Philip, had befriended Frey Miguel when the friar's convent 
was on the point of being invaded by soldiery, and had 
rescued him from the peril of it. Thus they had become 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal iii 

acquainted, and Frey Miguel had had an instance of the 
man's resource and courage. Further, he was of the height 
of Don Sebastian and of the build to which the king might 
iiave grown in the years that were sped, and he presented 
other superficial resemblances to the late king. The colour 
of his hair and beard could be corrected ; and he might be 
made to plav the part of the Hidden Prince for whose return 
Portugal was waiting so passionately and confidently. 
There had been other impostors aforetime, but they had 
lacked the endowments of Espinosa, and their origins could 
be traced without difficulty. In addition to these natural 
endowments, Espinosa should be avouched by Frey Miguel 
— than whom nobody in the world was better qualified in 
such a matter — and by the niece of King Philip, to whom he 
would be married when he raised his standard. It was 
arranged that the three should go to Paris so soon as the 
arrangements were complete, where the Pretender would 
be accredited by the exiled friends of Don Antonio residing 
there — the Prior of Crato being a party to the plot. From 
France Frey Miguel would have worked in Portugal 
through his agents, and presently would have gone there 
himself to stir up a national movement in favour of a 
pretender so fully accredited. Thus he had every hope of 
restoring Portugal to her independence. Once this should 
have been accomplished, Don Antonio would appear in 
Lisbon, unmask the impostor, and himself assume the 
crown of the kingdom which had been forcibly and defi- 
nitely wrenched from Spain. 

That was the crafty plan which the priest had laid with a 
singleness of aim and a detachment from minor considera- 
tions that never hesitated to sacrifice the princess, together 
with the chief instrument of the intrigue. Was the Ubera- 



112 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

tion of a kingdom, the deliverance of a nation from servi- 
tude, the happiness of a whole people, to weigh in the 
balance against the fates of a natural daughter of Don John 
of Austria and a soldier of fortune turned pastry-cook ? 
Frey Miguel thought not, and his plot might well have 
succeeded but for the base strain in Espinosa and the man's 
overweening vanity, which had urged him to dazzle the 
Gonzales at Valladolid. That vanity sustained him to 
the end, which he suffered in October of 1595, a full year 
after his arrest. To the last he avoided admissions that 
should throw light upon his obscure identity and origin. 

" If it were known who I am . . ." he would say, and 
there break off. 

He was hanged, drawn and quartered, and he endured his 
fate with calm fortitude. Frey Miguel suffered in the 
same way with the like dignity, after having undergone 
degradation from his priestly dignity. 

As for the unfortunate Princess Anne, crushed under a 
load of shame and humiliation, she had gone to her punish- 
ment in the previous July. The Apostolic Commissary 
notified her of the sentence which King Philip had con- 
firmed. She was to be transferred to another convent, 
there to undergo a term of four years' solitary confinement 
in her cell, and to fast on bread and water every Friday. 
She was pronounced incapable of ever holding any office, 
and was to be treated on the expiry of her term as an 
ordinary nun, her civil list abolished, her title of Excellency 
to be extinguished, together with all other honours and 
privileges conferred upon her by King Philip. 

The piteous letters of supplication that she addressed 
to the King, her uncle, still exist. But they left the cold, 
implacable Philip of ^Dain xinmoved. Her only sin was 



The Pastry-cook of Madrigal 113 

that, yielding to the hunger of her starved heart, and chafing 
under the ascetic life imposed upon her, she had allowed 
herself to be fascinated by the prospect of becoming the 
protectress of one whom she believed to be an unfortunate 
and romantic prince, and of exchanging her convent for 
a throne. 

Her punishment — poor soul— endured for close upon 
forty years, but the most terrible part of it was not that 
which lay within the prescription of King Philip, but that 
which arose from her own broken and humiliated spirit. 
She had been uplifted a moment by a glorious hope, to be 
cast down again into the blackest despair, to which a shame 
unspeakable and a tortured pride were added. 

Than hers, as I have said, there is in history no sadder 
story. 



V, The End of the '' Vert Galant " 
The Assassination of Henry IV 



8* 



V. The End of the '' Vert Galant '* 

IN the year 1609 died the last Duke of Cleves, and 
King Henry IV. of France and Navarre fell in love 
with Charlotte de Montmorency. 

In their conjunction these two events were to influence 
the destinies of Europe. In themselves they were trivial 
enough, since it was as much a commonplace that an old 
gentleman should die as that Henry of Beam should fall 
in love. Love had been the main relaxation of his other- 
wise strenuous life, and neither the advancing years — he 
was fifty-six at this date — nor the recriminations of Maria 
de' Medici, his long-suffering Florentine wife, sufficed to curb 
his zest. 

Possibly there may have been a husband more unfaithful 
than King Henry ; probably there was not. His gallantries 
were outrageous, his taste in women catholic, and his 
illegitimate progeny outnumbered that of his grandson, 
the English sultan Charles 11. He differs, however, from 
the latter in that he was not quite as Oriental in the manner 
of his self-indulgence. Charles, by comparison, was a 
mere dullard v/ho turned Whitehall into a seraglio. Henry 
preferred the romantic manner, the high adventure, and 
knew how to be gallant in two senses. 

This gallantry of his is not, perhaps, seen to best advan- 
tage in the affair of Charlotte de Montmorency To begin 

117 



ii8 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

with he was, as I have said, in his fifty-sixth year, an 
age at which it is difficult, without being ridiculous, to 
unbridle a passion for a girl of twenty. Unfortunately 
tor him, Charlotte does not appear to have found him so. 
On the contrary, her lovely, empty head was so turned 
by the flattery of his addresses, that she came to recip- 
rocate the passion she inspired. 

Her family had proposed to marry her to the gay and 
witty Marshal de Bassompierre ; and although his heart 
was not at all engaged, the marshal found the match 
extremely suitable, and was willing enough, until the King 
declared himself. Henry used the most impudent 
frankness. 

" Bassompierre, I will speak to you as a friend," said he. 
''I am in love, and desperately in love, with Mademoiselle 
de Montmorency. If you should marry her I should hate 
you. If she should love me you would hate me. A breach 
of our friendship would desolate me, for I love you with 
sincere affection." 

That was enough for Bassompierre. He had no mind 
to go further with a marriage of convenience which in 
the sequel would most probably give him to choose between 
assuming the ridiculous r6le of a complacent husband 
and being involved in a feud with his prince. He said as 
much, and thanked the King for his frankness, whereupon 
Henry, liking him more than ever for his good sense, further 
opened his mind to him. 

" I am thinking of marrying her to my nephew, Condc. 
Thus I shall have her in my family to be the comfort of my 
old age, which is coming on. Conde, who thinks of nothing 
but hunting, shall have a hundred thousand livres a year 
with which to amuse himself." 



The End of the " Vert Galant *' 119 

Bassompierre understood perfectly the kind of bargaia 
that was in Henry's mind. As for the Prince de Conde, 
he appears to|have been less acute, no doubt because his 
vision was dazzled^by the prospect of a hundred thousand 
livres a year. So desperately poor was he that for half 
that sum he would have taken Lucifer's own daughter to 
wife, without stopping to consider the disadvantages it 
might entail. 

The marriage was quietly celebrated at Chantilly in 
February of 1609. Trouble followed fast. Not only 
did Conde perceive at last precisely what was expected 
of him, and indignantly rebel against it, but the Queen, 
too, was carefully instructed in the matter by Concino 
Concini and his wife Leonora Galigai, the ambitious 
adventurers who had come from Florence in her train, and 
who saw in the King's weakness their own opportunity. 

The scandal that ensued was appalling. Never before 
had the relations between Henry and his queen been 
strained so nearly to breaking-point. And then, whilst 
the trouble of Henry's own making was growing about him 
until it threatened to overwhelm him, he received a letter 
from Vaucelas, his ambassador at Madrid, containing revela- 
tions that changed his annoyance into stark apprehension. 

When the last Duke of Cleves died a few months before, 
«* leaving all the world his heirs " — to use Henry's, own 
phrase — the Emperor had stepped in, and over-riding the 
rights of certain German princes had bestowed the fief 
upon his own nephew, the Archduke Leopold. Now this 
was an arrangement that did not suit Henry's policy at all, 
and being then — as the result of a wise husbanding of 
resources — the most powerful prince in Europe, Henry 
was not likely to submit tamely to arrangements that did 



120 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

not suit him. His instructions to Vaucelas were to keep 
open the difference between France and the House of 
Austria arising out of this matter of Cleves. All Europe 
knew that Henry desired to marry the Dauphin to the 
heiress of Lorraine, so that this State might one day be 
united with France ; and it was partly to support this 
claim that he w^as now disposed to attach, the German 
princes to his interests. 

Yet what Vaucelas told him in that letter was that 
certain agents at the court of Spain, chief among whom was 
the Florentine ambassador, acting upon instructions from 
certain members of the household of the Queen of France, 
and from others whom Vaucelas said he dared not mention, 
were intriguing to blast Henry's designs against the house 
of Austria, and to bring him willy-nilly into a union with 
Spain. These agents had gone so far in their utter dis- 
regard of Henry's own intentions as to propose to the 
Council of Madrid that the alliance should be cemented by 
a marriage between the Dauphin and the Infanta. 

That letter sent Henry early one morning hot-foot to 
the Arsenal, where Sully, his Minister of State, had his 
residence. Maximilien de Bethune, Duke of Sully, was 
not merely the King's servant, he was his closest friend, 
the very keeper of his soul ; and the King leaned upon 
him and sought his guidance not only in State affairs, but 
in the most intimate and domestic matters. Often already 
had it fallen to Sully to patch up the differences created 
between husband and wife by Henry's persistent infidelities. 

The King, arriving like the whirlwind, turned every- 
body out of the closet in which the duke — but newly risen 
— received him in bed-gown -and night-cap. Alone with 
his minister, Henry came abruptly to the matter. 



The End of the '' Vert Galant '' 121 

" You have heard what is being said of me ? " he burst 
out. He stood with his back to the window, a sturdy, 
erect, soldierly figure, a little above the middle height, 
dressed like a captain of fortune in jerkin and long boots 
of grey leather, and a grey hat with a wine-coloured ostrich 
plume. His countenance matched his raiment. Keen- 
eyed, broad of brow^, with a high-bridged, pendulous nose, 
red lips, a tuft of beard and a pair of grizzled, bristling 
moustachios, he looked half-hero, half-satyr ; half-Captain, 
half-Polichinelle. 

Sully, tall and broad, the incarnation of respectability 
and dignity, despite bed-gown and slippers and the night- 
cap covering his high, bald crown, made no pretence of 
misunderstanding him. 

** Of you and the Princesse de Conde, you mean, sire ? " 
quoth he, and gravely he shook his head. " It is a matter 
that has filled me with apprehension, for I foresee from it 
far greater trouble than from any former attachment of 
yours." 

" So they have convinced you, too, Grand-Master ! " 
Henry's tone was almost sorrowful. " Yet I swear that 
all is greatly exaggerated. It is the work of that dog 
Concini. Ventre St. Gris ! If he has no respect for me, 
at least he might consider how he slanders a child of such 
grace and wit and beauty, a lady of her high birth and 
noble lineage." 

There was a dangerous quiver of emotion in his voice 
that was not missed by the keen ears of Sully. Henry 
moved from the window, and flung into a chair. 

" Concini works to enrage the Queen against me, and to 
drive her to take violent resolutions which might give 
colour to their pernicious designs." 



122 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" Sire ! " It was a cry of protest from Sully. 

Henry laughed grimly at his minister's incredulity, and 
plucked forth tlie letter from Vaucelas. 

" Read that/' 

Sully read, and, aghast at what the letter told him, 
ejaculated : " They must be mad ! " 

" Oh, no," said the King. " They are not mad. They 
are most wickedly sane, which is why their designs fill me 
with apprehension. What do you infer, Grand-Master, 
from such deliberate plots against resolutions from which 
they know that nothing can turn me while I have life ? " 

" What can 1 infer ? " quoth Sully, aghast. 

" In acting thus — in daring to act thus," the King 
expounded, " they proceed as if they knew that I can have 
but a short time to liv^e." 

" Sire 1 " 

" What else ? Tiiey plan events which cannot take place 
until I am dead." 

Sully stared at his master for a long moment, in stupefied 
silence, his loyal Huguenot soul refusing to discount by 
flattery the truth that he perceived. 

" Sire," he said at last, bowing his fine head, " you must 
take your measures." 

" Ay, but against whom ? Who are these that Vaucelas 
says he dare not name ? Can you suggest another 
than . . ." He paused, shrinking in horror from com- 
pleting the utterance of his thought. Then, with an 
abrupt gesture, he went on, "... than tne Queen her- 
self ? " 

Sully quietly placed the letter on the table, and sat down. 
He took his chin in his hand, and looked squarely across 
at Henry. 



The End of the '' Vert Galani *' 123 

*' Sire, you have brought this upon yourself. You have 
exasperated her Majesty ; you have driven lier in despair 
to seek and act upon the councils of this scoundrel Concini* 
There never was an attachment of yours that did not beget 
trouble with tlie Queen, but never such trouble as I have 
been foreseeing from your attachment to the Princess of 
Conde. Sire, will you not consider where you stand ? " 

" They are lies, I tell you," Henry stormed. But Sully 
the uncompromising gravely shook his head. *' At least," 
Henry amended, " they are gross exaggerations. Oh, I con- 
fess to you, my friend, that I am sick with love of her. 
Day and night I see nothing but her gracious image. I 
sigh and fret and fume like any callow lad of twenty. I 
suffer the tortures of the damned. And yet . . . and yet, 
I swear to you, Sully, that I will curb this passion though 
it kill me. I will stifle these fires, though they consume 
my soul to ashes. No harm shall come to her from me. 
No harm has come yet. I swear it. These stories that are 
put about are the inventions of Concini to set my wife 
against me. Do you know how far he and his wife have 
dared to go r They have persuaded the Queen to eat 
nothing that is not prepared in the kitchen they have set 
up for her in their own apartments. What can you con- 
clude from that but that they suggest that I desire to 
poison her r " 

" Why suffer it, sire r " quoth Sully gr.'-vely. " Send 
the pair packing back to Florence, and so be rid of them." 

Henry rose in agitation. " I have a mind to. Venire 
St. Gris / I have a mind to. Yes, it is the only thing. 
You can manage it, Sully. Disabuse her mind of her 
suspicions regarding the Princess of Conde ; make my peace 
with her ; convince her of my sincerity, of my firm inten- 



124 ^^^<^ Historical Nights' Entertainment 

lion to have done with gallantry, so that she on her side 
will make me the sacrifice of banishing the Concinis. You 
will do this, my friend ? " 

It was no less than Sully had been expecting from past 
experience, and the task was one in which he was by now 
well-practised ; but the situation had never before been 
quite so difficult. He rose. 

" Why, surely, sire," said he. '* But her Majesty on her 
side may require something more to reconcile her to the 
sacrifice. She may reopen the question of her coronation 
so long and — in her view — so unreasonably postponed." 

Henry's face grew overcast, his brows knit. " I have 
always had an instinct against it, as you know. Grand 
Master," said he, " and this instinct is strengthened by what 
that letter has taught me. If she will dare so much, having 
30 little real power, what might she not do if . . ." He 
broke off, and fell to musing. " If she demands it we must 
yield, I suppose," he said at length. " But give her to 
understand that if I discover any more of her designs with 
Spain I shall be provoked to the last degree against her. 
And as an antidote to these machinations at Madrid you 
may publish my intention to uphold the claims of the 
German Princes in the matter of Cleves, and let all the 
world know that we are arming to that end." 

He may have thought — as was long afterwards alleged — ■' 
that the threat itself should be sufficient, for there was at 
that time no power in Europe that could have stood against 
his armies in the field. 

On that they parted, with a final injunction from Sully 
that Henry should see the Princesse de Conde no more. 

" I swear to you, Grand Master, that I will use restraint 
and respect the sacred tie I formed between my nephew 



The End of the '' Vert Galant '' 125 

and Charlotte solely so that I might impose silence upon 
my own passion." 

And the good Sully writes in comment upon this : " I 
should have relied absolutely upon these assurances had I 
not known how easy it is for a heart tender and passionate 
as was his to deceive itself " — which is the most amiable 
conceivable way of saying that he attached not the slightest 
faith to the King's promise. 

Nevertheless he went about the task of making the peace 
between the royal couple with all the skill and tact that 
experience had taught him ; and he might have driven a 
good bargain on his master's behalf but for his master's 
own weakness in supporting him. Maria de' Medici would 
not hear of the banishment of the Concinis, to whom she 
was so deeply attached. She insisted with perfect justice 
that she was a bitterly injured woman, and refused to enter- 
tain any idea of reconciliation save with the condition that 
arrangements for her coronation as Queen of France — 
which was no more than her due — should be made at once, 
and that the King should give an undertaking not to make 
himself ridiculous any longer by his pursuit of the Princess 
of Conde. Of the matters contained in the letter of 
Vaucelas she denied all knowledge, nor would suffer any 
further inquisition. 

From Henry's point of view this was anything but satis- 
factory. But he yielded. Conscience made a coward of 
him. He had wronged her so much in one way that he 
must make some compensating concessions to her in 
another. This weakness was part of his mental attitude 
towards her, which swung constantly between confidence 
and diffidence, esteem and indifference, affection and cold- 
ness ; at times he inclined to put her from him entirely ; 



126 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

at others he opined that no one on his Council was more 
capable of the administration of affairs. Even in the indig- 
nation aroused by the proof he held of her disloyalty, he 
was too just not to admit the provocation he had given her. 
So he submitted to a reconciliation on her own terms, and 
pledged himself to renounce Charlotte. We have no right 
to assume from the*sequel that he was not sincere In the 
intention. 

By the following May events proved the accuracy of 
Sully's judgment. The court was at Fontainebleau when 
the last bulwark of Henry's prudence was battered down 
by the vanity of that lovely fool, Charlotte, who must 
be encouraging her royal lover to resume his flattering 
homage. But both appear to have reckoned without the 
lady's husband. 

Henry presented Charlotte with jewels to the value of 
eighteen thousand livres, purchased from Messier, the 
jeweller of the Pont au Change ; and you conceive what 
the charitable ladies of the Court had to say about it. 
At the first hint of scandal Monsieur de Conde put himself 
into a fine heat, and said things which pained and annoyed 
the King exceedingly. Henry had amassed a considerable 
and varied experience of jealous husbands in his time ; 
but he had never met one quite so intolerable as this 
nephew of his. He complained of it in a letter to Sully. 

" My friend, — Monsieur the Prince is here, but he acts like a man 
possessed. You will be angry and ashamed at the things he says of me. 
I shall end by losing all patience with him. In the meanwhile I am 
obliged to talk to him with severity." 

More severe than any talk was Henry's instruction to 
Sully to withhold payment of the last quarter of the 



The End of the '' Vert Galant '' 127 

prince's allowance, and to give refusals to his creditors 
and purveyors. Thus he intended also, no doubt, to 
make it clear to Conde that he did not receive a pension 
of a hundred thousand livres a year for nothing. 

" If this does not keep him in bounds," Henry con- 
cluded, " we must think of some other method, for he says 
the most injurious things of me." 

So little did it keep the prince in bounds— as Henry 
understood the phrase — that he immediately packed his 
belongings, and carried his wife off to his country house. 
It was quite in vain that Henry wrote to him representing 
that this conduct was dishonouring to them both, and that 
the only place for a prince of the blood was the court of 
his sovereign. 

The end of it all was that the reckless and romantic 
Henry took to night-prowling about the grounds of Conde's 
chateau. In the disguise of a peasant you see his Majesty 
of France and Navarre, whose will was law in Europe, 
shivering behind damp hedges, ankle-deep in wet grass, 
spending long hours in love-lorn, ecstatic contemplation 
of her lighted window, and all — so far as we can gather — 
for no other result than the aggravation of certain rheumatic 
troubles which should have reminded him that he was no 
longer of an age to pursue these amorous pernocta- 
tions. 

But where his stiffening joints failed, the Queen suc- 
ceeded. Henry had been spied upon, of course, as he 
always was when he strayed from the path of matrimonial 
rectitude. The Concinis saw to that. And when they 
judged the season ripe, they put her Majesty in possession of 
the facts. So inflamed was she by this fresh breach of trust 
that war was declared^anew^ between the royal couple, 



128 The Historical Nights' Eiitertaimnent 

and the best tliat Sully's wit and labours could now 
accomplish was a sort of armed truce. 

And then at last in the following November the Prince 
de Conde took the desperate resolve of quitting France 
with his wife, without troubling — as was his duty — to 
obtain the King's consent. On the last night of that 
month, as Henry \v'as at cards in the Louvre, the Chevalier 
du Guet brought him the news of the prince's flight. 

" I never in my life," says Bassompierre, who was 
present, " saw a man so distracted or in so violent a 
passion." 

He flung down his cards, and rose, sending his chair 
crashing over behind him. " I am undone ! " was hia 
cry. " Undone ! This madman has carried off his wife — 
perhaps to kill her." White and shaking, he turned to 
Bassompierre. " Take care of my money," he bade 
him, " and go on with the game." 

He lurched out of the room, and dispatched a messenger 
to the Arsenal to fetch M. de Sully. Sully obeyed the 
summons and came at once, but in an extremely bad 
temper, for it was late at night, and he was overburdened 
with work. 

He found the King in the Queen's chamber, walking 
backward and forward, his head sunk upon his breast, 
his hands clenched behind him. The Queen, a squarely- 
built, square-faced woman, sat apart, attended by a few 
of her ladies and one or two gentlemen of her train. Her 
countenance was set and inscrutable, and her brooding 
eyes were fixed upon the King. 

"Ha, Grand Master! " was Henry's greeting, his \^oice 
harsh and strained. " What do you say to this ? What 
is to be done now ? " 



The End of the ^' Vert Galant " 129 

" Nothing at all, sire," saya Sully, as calm as his master 
wai excited. 

" Nothing ! What sort of advice is that ? " 

" The best advice that you can follow, sire. Thi.i 
affair should be talked of as little as possible, nor should 
it appear to be of any consequence to you, or capable of 
giving you the least uneasiness." 

The Queen cleared her throat huskily. " Good advice, 
Monsieur le Due," she approved him. " He will be wise 
to follow it." Her voice strained, almost threatening. 
" But in this matter I doubt wisdom and he have long 
since become strangers." 

That put him in a passion, and in a passion he left her 
to do the maddest thing he had ever done. In the garb of 
a courier, and with a patch over one eye to complete his 
disguise, he set out in pursuit of the fugitives. He had 
learnt that they had taken the road to Landrecy, which 
was enough for him. Stage by stage he followed them in 
that flight to Flanders, picking up the trail as he went, 
and never pausing until he had reached the frontier without 
overtaking them. 

It was all most romantic, and the lady, when she learnt 
of it, shed tears of mingled joy and rage, and wrote him 
impassioned letters in which she addressed him as her 
knight, and implored him, as he loved her, to come and 
deliver her from the detestable tyrant who held her in 
thrall. Those perfervid appeals completed his undoing, 
drove him mad, and blinded him to everything — even to 
the fact that his wife, too, was shedding tears, and that 
these were of rage undiluted by any more tender emotion. 

He began by sending Praslin to require the Archduke 
to order^the^Prince^of Conde to leave his dominions. And 

9 



130 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

when the Archduke declined with dignity to be guilty of 
any such breach of the law of nations, Henry dispatched 
Coeuvres secretly to Brussels to carry off thence the 
princess. But Maria de' Medici was on the alert, and 
frustrated the design by sending a warning of what was 
intended to the Marquis Spinola, as a result of which the 
Prince de Conde and his wife were housed for greater 
security in the Archduke's own palace. 

Checkmated at all points, yet goaded further by the 
letters which he continued to receive from that most 
foolish of princesses, Henry took the wild decision that to 
obtain her he would invade the Low Countries as the 
first step in the execution of that design of a war with 
Spain which hitherto had been little more than a pretence. 
The matter of the Duchy of Cleves was a pretext ready to 
his hand. To obtain the woman he desired he would 
set Europe in a blaze. 

He took that monstrous resolve at the very beginning 
of the new year, and in the months that followed France 
rang with preparations. It rang, too, with other things 
which should have given him pause. It rang with the 
voice of preachers giving expression to the popular view 
that Cleves was not worth fighting for, that the war was 
unrighteous — a war undertaken by Catholic France to 
defend Protestant interests against the very champions of 
Catholicism in Europe. And soon it began to ring, too, 
with prophecies of the King's approaching end. 

These prognostics rained upon him from every quarter. 
Thomassin, and the astrologer La Brosse, warned him 
of a message from the stars that May would be fraught 
with danger for him. From Rome — from the very Pope 
himself — came notice of a conspiracy against him in which 



The End of the '' Vert Galant '' 131 

he was told that the very highest in the land were engaged. 
From EmbruDj Bayonne, and Douai came messages of 
like purport, and early in May a note v/as found one 
morning on the altar of the church of Montargis announcing 
the King's approaching death. 

But that is to anticipate. Meanwhile, Henry had 
pursued his preparations undeterred by either warnings 
or prognostications. There had been so many conspiracies 
against his life already that he was become careless and 
indifferent in such matters. , Yet surely there never had 
been one that was so abundantly heralded from every 
quarter, or ever one that was hatched under conditions 
so propitious as those which he had himself created now. 
In his soul he was not at ease, and the source of his un- 
easiness was the coronation of the Queen, for which the 
preparations were now going forward. 

He must have known that if danger of assassination 
threatened him from any quarter it was most to be feared 
from those whose influence with the Queen w^s almost 
such as to give them a control pver her — the Con^inis-and 
their unavowed but obvious ally the Duke of Epernon. 
If he were dead, and the Queen so left that she could be 
made absolute regent during the Dauphin's minoriiyj it 
was those adventurers who would become through her 
the true rulers of France, and so enrich themselves and 
gratify to the full their covetous ambitions. He saw 
clearly that his safety lay in opposing this coronation — 
already fixed for the 13th May — which Maria de' Medici ^= 
was so insistent should take place before his departure for 
the wars. The matter so preyed upon his mind that 
at last he unburdened himself to Sully one day at the 
Arsenal. l^ 

9* 



132 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" Oh, my friend," he cried, " this coronation does not 
please me. My heart tells me that some fatality will 
follow." 

He sat down, grasping the case of his reading-glass, 
whilst Sully could only stare at him amazed by this out- 
burst. Thus he remained awhile in deep thought. Then 
he started up again. 

" Pardieu ! " he cried. " I shall be murdered in this 
city. It is their only resource. I see it plainly. This 
cursed coronation will be the cause of my death." 

" What a thought, sire ! " 

" You think that I have been reading the almanach or 
paying heed to the prophets, eh r But listen to me now, 
Grand Master." And wrinkles deepened about the bold, 
piercing eyes. " It is four months and more since we 
announced our intention of going to war, and France has 
resounded with our preparations. We have made no 
secret of it. Yet in Spain not a finger has been lifted 
in preparation to resist us, not a sword has been sharpened. 
Upon what does Spain build ? Whence her confidence 
that in despite of my firm resolve and my abundant 
preparations, despite the fact announced that I am to 
march on the 17th of this month, despite the fact that 
my troops are already in Champagne with a train of 
artillery so complete and well-furnished that France has 
never seen the like of it, and perhaps never will again — 
whence the confidence that despite all this there is no need 
to prepare defences ? Upon what do they build, I say, 
when they assume, as assume they must, that there will 
be no war ? Resolve me that, Grand Master." 

But Sully, overwhelmed, could only gasp and ejaculate. 

" You had not thought of it, eh r Yet it is clear enough. 



The End of the '* Vert Galant *' 133 

Spain builds on my death. And who are the friends of 
Spain here in France ? Who was it intrigued with Spain 
in such a way and to such ends as in my lifetime could never 
have been carried to an issue ? Ha ! You see." 

" I cannot, sire. It is too horrible. It is impossible ! " 
cried that loyal, honest gentleman. " And yet if you are 
convinced of it, you should break off this coronation, your 
journey, and your war. If you wish it so, it is not difficult 
to satisfy you." 

" Ay, that is it." He came to his feet, and gripped 
the duke's shoulder in his strong, nervous hand. " Break 
off this coronation, and never let me hear of it again. 
That will suffice. Thus I can rid my mind of apprehensions, 
and leave Paris with nothing to fear." 

" Very well. I will send at once to Notre Dame and to 
St. Denis, to stop the preparations and dismiss the work- 
men." 

" Ah, wait." The eyes that for a moment had sparkled 
with new hope, grew dull again ; the lines of care descended 
between the brows. " Oh, what to decide I What to 
decide ! It is what I wish, my friend. But how will my 
wife take it ? " 

" Let her take it as she will. I cannot believe that she 
will continue obstinate when she knows what apprehensions 
you have of disaster." 

" Perhaps not, perhaps not," he answered. But his tone 
was not sanguine. " Try to persuade her. Sully. Without 
her consent I cannot do this thing. But you will know 
how to persuade her. Go to her." 

Sully suspended the preparations for the coronation, 
and sought the Queen. For three days, he tells us, he 
used prayers, entreaties, and arguments with which to 



134 The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

endeavour to move her. But all was labour lost, Maria 
de' Medici was not to be moved. To all Sully's arguments 
she opposed an argument that was unanswerable. 

Unless she were crowned Queen of France, as was 
hor absolute right, she would be a person of no account 
and subject to the Council of Regency during the King's 
absence, a position unworthy and intolerable to her, 
the mother of the Dauphin. 

And so it was Henry's part to yield. His hands were 
tied by the wrongs that he had done, and the culminating 
WTong that he was doing her by this very war, as he had 
himself openly acknowledged. He had chanced one day 
to ask the Papal Nuncio what Rome thought of this war. 

" Those who have the best information," the Nuncio 
answered boldly, " are of opinion that the principal object 
of the war is the Princess of Conde, whom your Majesty 
wishes to bring back to France." 

Angered by this priestly insolence, Henry's answer had 
been an impudently defiant acknowledgment of the truth 
of that allegation. 

" Yes, by God ! " he cried. " Yes — most certainly 
I want to have her back, and I will have her back ; no one 
shall hinder me, not even God's vicegerent on earth." 

Having uttered those words, which he knew to have 
been carried to the Queen, and to have wounded her perhaps 
more deeply than anything that had yet happened in this 
affair, his conscience left him, despite his fears, powerless 
now to thwart her even to the extent of removing those 
pernicious famiHars of hers of whose plottings he had all but 
positive evidence. 

And so the coronation was at last performed with proper 
pomp and magnificence at St. Denis on Thursday, the ijtli 



^ The End of the '' Vert Galant " 135 

May. It had been concerted that the festivities should 
last four days and conclude on the Sunday with the 
Queen's public entry into Paris. On the Monday the King 
was to set out to take command of his armies, which were 
already marching upon the frontiers. 

Thus Henry proposed, but the Queen — convinced by his 
own admission of the real aim and object of the war, and 
driven by outraged pride to hate the man who offered her 
this crowning insult, and determined that at all costs it 
must be thwarted — had lent an ear to Concini's purpose 
to avenge her, and was ready to repay infidelity with 
infidelity. Concini and his fellow-conspirators had gone 
to work so confidently that a week before the coronation 
a courier had appeared in Liege, announcing that he was 
going with news of Henry's assassination to the Princes 
of Germany, whilst at the same time accounts of the 
King's death were being published in France and Italy. 

Meanwhile, whatever inward misgivings Henry may 
have entertained, outwardly at least he appeared serene 
and good-humoured at his wife's coronation, gaily greeting 
her at the end of the ceremony by the title of " Madam 
Regent." 

The little incident may have touched her, arousing her 
conscience. For that night she disturbed his slumbers by 
sudden screams, and when he sprang up in solicitous alarm 
she falteringly told him of a dream in which she had seen 
him slain, and fell to imploring him with a tenderness 
such as had been utterly foreign to her Qf late to take 
great care of himself in the days to come. In the morning 
she renewed those entreaties, beseeching him not to leave 
the Louvre that day, urging that she had a premonitioa 
it would be fatal to him. 



136 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

He laughed for answer. " You have heard of the 
predictions of La Brosse," said he. " Bah ! You should 
not attach credit to such nonsense." 

Anon came the Duke of Vend6me, his natural son by 
the Marquise de Verneuil, with a like warning and a like 
entreaty, only to receive a like answer. 

Being dull and indisposed as a consequence of last 
night's broken rest, Henry lay down after dinner. But 
finding sleep denied him, he rose, pensive and gloomy, 
and wandered aimlessly down, and out into the courtyard. 
There an exempt of the guard, of whom he casually asked 
the time, observing the King's pallor and listlessness, took 
the liberty of suggesting that his Majesty might benefit 
if he took the air. 

That chance remark decided Henry's fate. His eyes 
quickened responsively. " You advise well," said he. 
" Order my coach. I will go to the Arsenal to see the Due 
de Sully, who is indisposed." 

On the stones beyond the gates, where lackeys were 
wont to await their masters, sat a lean fellow of some 
thirty years of age, in a dingy, clerkly attire, so repulsively 
evil of countenance that he had once been arrested on no 
better grounds than because it was deemed impossible 
that a man with such a face could be other than a villain. 

Whilst the coach was being got ready, Henry re-entered 
the Louvre, and startled the Queen by announcing his 
intention. With fearful insistence she besought him to 
countermand the order, and not to leave the palace. 

" I will but go there and back," he said, laughing at her 
fears. " I shall have returned before you realize that I 
have gone." And so he went, never to return alive. 

He sat at the back of the coach, and the weather being 



The End of the ** Vert Galant '' 137 

fine all the curtains were drawn up so that he might view 
the decorations of the city against the Queen's public entry 
on Sunday. The Due d'Epernon was on his right, the 
Due de Montbazon and the Marquis de la Force on his left. 
Lavordin and Roquelaure were in the right boot, whilst 
near the left boot, opposite to Henry , sat Mirebeau and 
du Plessis Liancourt. He was attended only by a small 
number of gentlemen on horseback, and some footmen. 

The coach turned from the Rue St. Honore into the 
narrow Rue de la Ferronerie, and there was brought to a 
halt by a block occasioned by the meeting of two carts, 
one laden with hay, the other with wine. The footmen 
went ahead with the exception of two. Of these, one 
advanced to clear a way for the royal vehicle, whilst the 
other took the opportunity to fasten his garter. 

At that moment, gliding like a shadow between the coach 
and the shops, came that shabby, hideous fellow who had 
been sitting on the stones outside the Louvre an hour ago. 
Raising himself by deliberately standing upon one of the 
spokes of the stationary wheel, he leaned over the Due 
d'Epernon, and, whipping a long, stout knife from his 
sleeve, stabbed Henry in the breast. The King, who was 
in the act of reading a letter, cried out, and threw up his 
arms in an instinctive warding movement, thereby exposing 
his heart. The assassin stabbed again, and this time the 
blade went deep. 

With a little gasping cough, Henry sank together, and 
blood gushed from his mouth. -1 - 

The predictions were fulfilled ; the tale borne by the 
courier riding through Liege a week ago was made true, 
as were the stories of his death already at that very hour 
circulating in Antwerp, Malines, Brussels, and elsewhere. 



138 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

The murderer aimed yet a third blow, but this at last 
was parried by Epernon, whereupon the fellow stepped 
back from the coach, and stood there, making no attempt 
to escape, or even to rid himself of the incriminating knife. 
St. Michel, one of the King's gentlemen-in-waiting, who had 
followed the coach, whipped out his sword and would have 
slain him on the spot had he not been restrained by Eper- 
non. The footmen seized the fellow, and delivered him over 
to the captain of the guard. He proved to be a school- 
master of Angouleme — which was Epernon's country. 
His name was Ravaillac. 

The curtains of the coach were drawn, the veliicle was 
put about, and driven back to the Louvre, whilst to avoid 
all disturbance it was announced to the people that the King 
was merely wounded. 

But St. Michel went on to the Arsenal, taking with him 
the knife that had stabbed his master, to bear the sinister 
tidings to Henry's loyal and devoted friend. Sully knew 
enough to gauge exactly whence the blow had proceeded. 
With anger and grief in his heart he got to horse, ill as he 
was, and, calUng together his people, set out presently for 
the Louvre, with a train one hundred strong, which was 
presently increased to twice that number by many of the 
King's faithful servants who joined his company as he 
advanced. In the Rue de la Pourpointiere a man in passing 
slipped a note into his hand. 

It was a brief scrawl ; " Monsieur, zuhere are you going f 
It is do7ie. I have seen him dead. If you enter the Louvre 
you Ziill not escape any more than he did^ 

Nearing St. Innocent, the warning was repeated, this 
time by a gentleman named du Jon, who stopped to 
mutter : 



The End of the '' Vert Galant '' 139 

" Monsieur le Due, our evil is without remedy. Look to 
yourself, for this strange blow will have fearful conse- 
quences." 

Again in the Rue St. Honore another note was thrown 
him, whose contents were akin to those of the first. Yet 
with misgivings mounting swiftly to certainty, Sully rode 
amain towards the Louvre, his train by now amounting 
to some three hundred horse. But at the end of the street 
he was stopped by M. de Vitry, who drew rein as they met. 

" Ah, monsieur," Vitry greeted him, " where are you 
going with such a following ? They will never suffer you 
to enter the Louvre with more than two or three attendants, 
which I would not advise you to do. For this plot does not 
end here. I have seen some persons so Httle sensible of the 
loss they have sustained that they cannot even simulate 
the grief they should feel. Go back, monsieur. There is 
enough for you to do without going to the Louvre." 

Persuaded by Vitry's solemnity, and by what he knew 
in his heart. Sully faced about and set out to retrace his 
steps. But presently he was overtaken by a messenger 
from the Queen, begging him to come at once to her at 
the Louvre, and to bring as few persons as possible with 
him. " This proposal," he writes, " to go alone and deliver 
myself into the hands of my enemies, who filled the Louvre, 
was not calculated to allay my suspicions." 

Moreover he received word at that moment that an 
exempt of the guards and a force of soldiers were already 
at the gates of the Arsenal, that others had been sent to the 
Temple, where the powder was stored, and others again to 
the treasurer of the Exchequer to stop all the money there. 
" Convey to the Queen my duty and service," he bade 
tlie messenger, " and assure her that until she acquaints 



140 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

me with her orders I shall continue assiduously to attend 
the affairs of my office." And with that he went to shut 
himself up in the Bastille, whither he was presently fol~ 
lowed by a stream of her Majesty's envoys, all bidding 
him to the Louvre. But Sully, ill as he was, and now 
utterly prostrated by all that he had endured, put himself 
to bed and made of his indisposition a sufficient excuse. 

Yet on the morrow he allowed himself to be persuaded 
to obey her summons, receiving certain assurances that lie 
had no ground for any apprehensions. Moreover, he may 
by now have felt a certain security in the esteem in which 
the Parisians held him. An attempt against him in the 
Louvre itself would prove that the blow that had killed 
his master was not the independent act of a fanatic, as it 
was being represented ; and vengeance would follow 
swiftly upon the heads of those who would thus betray 
themselves of having made of that poor wretch's fanaticism 
an instrument to their evil ends. 

In that assurance he went, and he has left on record the 
burning indignation aroused in him at the signs of satis- 
faction, complacency, and even mirth that he discovered 
in that house of death. The Queen herself, however, 
overwrought by the events, and perhaps conscience-stricken 
by the tragedy which in the eleventh hour she had sought 
to avert, burst into tears at sight of Sully, and brought in 
the Dauphin, who flung himself upon the Duke's neck. 

" My son," the Queen addressed him, " this is Monsieur 
de Sully. You must love him well, for he was one of the 
best and most faithful servants of the King your father, 
and I entreat him to continue to serve you in the same 
manner." 

Words so fair might have convinced a man less astute 



The End of the *' Vert Galant " 141 

that all his suspicions were unworthy. But, even then, 
the sequel would very quickly have undeceived him. 
For very soon thereafter his fall was brought about by the 
Concinis and their creatures, so that no obstacle should 
remain between themselves and the full gratification of 
their fell ambitions. 

At once he saw the whole policy of the dead King sub- 
versed ; he saw the renouncing of all ancient alliances, and 
the union of the crowns of France and Spain ; the repealing 
of all acts of pacification ; the destruction of the Pro- 
testants ; the dissipation of the treasures amassed by 
Henry ; the disgrace of those who would not receive the 
yoke of the new favourites. All this Sully witnessed in 
his declining years, and he witnessed, too, the rapid rise 
to the greatest power and dignity in the State of that 
Florentine adventurer, Concino Concini — now bearing the 
title of Marshal d'Ancre — who had so cunningly known how 
to profit by a Queen's jealousy and a King's indiscretions. 

As for the miserable Ravaillac, it is pretended that he 
maintained under torture and to the very hour of his death 
that he had no accomplices, that what he had done he had 
done to prevent an unrighteous war against Catholicism 
and the Pope — which was, no doubt, the falsehood with 
which those who used him played upon his fanaticism 
and whetted him to their service. I say " pretended " 
because, after all, complete records of his examinations are 
not discoverable, and there is a story that when at the 
point of death, seeing himself abandoned by those in whom 
perhaps he had trusted, he signified a desire to confess, and 
did so confess ; but the notary Voisin, who took his deposi- 
tions in articulo mortis^ set them down in a hand so 
slovenly as to be afterwards undecipherable. 



142 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

That may or may not be true. But the statement 
that when the President du Harlay sought to pursue in- 
quiries into certain allegations by a woman named 
d'Escoman, which incriminated the Due d'Epernon, he 
received a royal order to desist, rests upon sound authority. 



That is the story of the assassination of Henry IV. 
re-told in the light of certain records which appear to me to 
have been insufficiently studied. They should suggest a 
train of speculation leading to inferences which, whilst 
obvious, I hesitate to define absolutely. 

" If it be asked," says Perefixe, " who were the friends 
that suggested to Ravaillac so damnable a design, history 
replies that it is ignorant and that upon an action of such 
consequences it is not permissible to give suspicions and 
conjectures for certain truths. The judges themselves 
who interrogated him dared not open their mouths, and 
never mentioned the matter but with gestures of horror 
and amazement." 



VL The Barren Wooing 
The Murder of Amy Robs art 



VL The Barren Wooing 

THERE had been a banquet, followed by a masque, 
and this again by a dance in which the young queen 
had paired off with Lord Robert Dudley, who in repute was 
the handsomest man in Europe, just as in fact he was the 
vainest, shallowest, and most unscrupulous. There had 
been homage and flattery lavishly expressed, and there was 
a hint of masked hostiUty from certain quarters to spice 
the adventure, and to thrill her bold young spirit. Never 
yet in all the months of her reign since her coronation in 
January of last year had she felt so much a queen, and so 
conscious of the power of her high estate , never so much a 
woman, and so conscious of the weakness of her sex. Th e 
interaction of those conflicting senses wrought upon her 
like a heady wine. She leaned more heavily upon the 
silken arm of her handsome Master of the Horse, and 
careless in her intoxication of what might be thought or 
said, she — who by the intimate favour shown him had 
already loosed the tongue of Scandal and set it chattering 
in every court in Europe — drew him forth from that 
thronged and glittering chamber of the Palace of White» 
hall into the outer solitude and friendly gloom. 

And he, nothing loth to obey the suasion of that white 
hand upon his arm, exultant, indeed, to parade before them 

145 10 



146 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

all the power he had with her, went willingly enough. Let 
Norfolk and Sussex scowl, let Arundel bite his lip until it 
bled, and sober Cecil stare cold disapproval. They should 
mend their countenances soon, and weigh their words or 
be for ever silenced, when he was master in England. 
And that he would soon be master he was assured to-night 
by every glance of her blue eyes, by the pressure of that 
fair hand upon his arm, by the languishing abandonment 
with which that warm young body swayed towards him, 
as they passed out from the blaze of lights and the strains 
of music into the gloom and silence of the gallery leading 
to the terrace. 

" Out— let us go out, Robin. Let me have air," she 
almost panted, as she drew him on. 

Assuredly he would b« master soon. Indeed, he might 
have been master already but for that wife of his, that 
stumbling-block to his ambition, who practised the house- 
wifely virtues at Cumnor Place, and clung so tenaciously 
and so inconsiderately to life in spite of all his plans to 
reheve her of the burden of it. 

For a year and more his name had been coupled v^dtii 
the Queen's in a tale that hurt her honour as a woman 
and imperilled her dignity as a sovereign. Already in 
October of 1559 Alvarez de Quadra, the Spanish ambassa- 
dor, had written home : '' I have learnt certain things as 
to the terms on which the Queen and Lord Robert stand 
towards each other which I could not have believed." 

That was at a time when de Quadra was one of a dozen 
ambassadors who were competing for her hand, and Lord 
Robert had, himself, appeared to be an ally of de Quadra 
and an advocate of the Spanish marriage with the Arch- 
duke Charles. But it was a pretence w^hich nowise deceived 



The Barren Wooing 147 

the astute Spaniard, who employed a legion 01 spies to 
keep him well informed. / 

'' All the dallying with us," he wrote, '' all the dallying 
with the Swede, all the dallying there will be with the -rest, 
one after another, is merely to keep Lord Robert's enemies 
in play until his villainy about his wife can be executed." 

What that particular villainy was, the ambassador had 
already stated earUer in his letter. '' I have learnt from a 
person who usually gives me true information that Lord 
Robert has sent to have his wife poisoned." 

What had actually happened was that Sir Richard 
Verney — a trusted retainer of Lord Robert's — ^had reported 
to Dr. Bayley, of New College, Oxford, that Lady Robert ^ 
Dudley was " sad and ailing," and had asked him for a 
potion. But the doctor was learned in more matters than 
physic. He had caught an echo of the tale of Lord Robert's 
ambition ; he had heard a whisper that whatever suitors 
might come from overseas for Elizabeth, she would marry 
none but " my lord " — as Lord Robert was now commonly 
styled. More, he had aforetime heard rumours of the 
indispositions of Lady Robert, yet had never found those 
rumours verified by the fact. Some months ago, it had 
been reported that her ladyship was suffering from cancer 
of the breast and likely soon to die of it. Yet Dr. Bayley 
had reason to know that a healthier woman did not live 
in Berkshire, 

The good doctor was a capable deductive reasoner, and 
the conclusion to which he came was that if they poisoned 
her under cover of his potion — she standing in no need of 
physic — he might afterwards be hanged as a cover for their 
crime. So he refused to prescribe as he was invited, nor 
troubled to make a secret of invitation and refusal. 

10* 



148 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

For awhile, then, Lord Robert had prudently held his 
hand ; moreover, the urgency there had been a year ago, 
when that host of foreign suitors laid siege to Elizabeth of 
England, had passed, and his lordship could afford to wait. 
But now of a sudden the urgency was returned. Under 
the pressure brought to bear upon her to choose a husband, 
Elizabeth had half-committed herself to marry the Arch- 
duke Charles, promising the Spanish ambassador a definite 
answer within a few days. 

Lord Robert had felt the earth to be quaking under 
him ; he had seen the ruin of his high ambitions ; he had 
watched with rage the expanding mockery upon the counte- 
nances of Norfolk, Sussex, and those others who hated and 
despised him ; and he had cursed that wife of his who knew 
not when to die. But for that obstinacy with which she 
clung to life he had been the Queen's husband these many 
months, so making an end to suspense and to the danger 
that lies in delay. 

To-night the wantonness with which the Queen flaunted 
before the eyes of all her court the predilection in which 
she held him, came not merely to lull his recent doubts 
and fears, to feed his egregious vanity, and to assure him 
that in her heart he need fear no rival ; it came also to set 
his soul aquiver with impotent rage. He had but to put 
forth his hands to possess himself of this splendid prize. 
Yet those hands of his were bound while that woman lived 
at Cumnor. Conceive his feelings as they stole away 
together like any pair of lovers. 

Arm in arm they came by a stone gallery, where a stal- 
wart scarlet sentinel, a yeoman of the guard, with a Tudor 
rose embroidered in gold upon his back, stood under a lamp 
set in the wall, with grounded pike and body stiffly erect. 



The Barren Wooing 149 

The tall young Queen was in crimson satin with cunningly- 
wrought silver embroideries, trimmed with tufted silver 
fringe, her stomacher stiff with silver bullion studded with 
gold rosettes and Roman pearls, her bodice cut low to 
display her splendid neck, decked by a carcanet of pearls 
and rubies, and surmounted by a fan-like ruff of guipure, 
high behind and sloping towards the bust. Thus she 
appeared to the sentinel as the rays of the single lamp 
behind him struck fire from her red-gold hair. As if by her 
very gait to express the wantonness of her mood, she 
pointed her toes and walked with head thrown back, 
smiling up into the gipsy face of her companion, who 
was arrayed from head to foot in shimmering ivory 
satin, with an elegance no man in England could have 
matched. 

They came by that stone gallery to a little terrace above 
the Privy Steps. A crescent moon hung low over the 
Lambeth marshes across the river. From a barge that 
floated gay with lights in mid-stream came a tinkle of 
lutes, and the sweet voice of a singing boy. A moment 
the lovers stood at gaze, entranced by the beauty of the 
soft, tepid September night, so subtly adapted to their 
mood. Then she fetched a sigh, and hung more heavily 
upon his arm, leaned nearer to his^ tall, vigorous, graceful 
figure. 

" Robin, Robin ! " was all she said, but in her voice 
throbbed a world of passionate longing, an exquisite blend 
»f delight and pain. 

Judging the season ripe, his arm flashed round her, and 
drew her fiercely close. For a moment she was content 
to yield, her head against his stalwart shoulder, a very 
woman nestling to the mate of her choice, surrendering 



150 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

£0 her master. Tlien the queen in her awoke and strangled 
nature. Roughly she disengaged herself from his arm, 
and stood away, her breathing quickened. 

** God's Death, Robin ! " There was a harsh note in the 
voice that lately had cooed so softly. " You are strangely 
free, I think." 

But he, impudence incarnate, nothing abashed, accus- 
tomed to her gusty moods, to her alternations between 
the two natures she had inherited — from overbearing 
father and wanton mother — was determined at all costs 
to take the fullest advantage of the hour, to make an end 
of suspense. 

, " I am not free, but enslaved — by love and worship 
of you. Would you deny me .? Would you ? " 

"' Not I, but fate," she answered heavily, and he knew 
that the woman at Cuninor was in her mind. 

'• Fate will soon mend the wrong that fate has done — 
very soon now." He took her hand, and, melted again 
from her dignity, she let it lie in his. " When that is done, 
sweet, then will I claim you for my own." 

'' When that is done, Robin ? " she questioned almost 
fearfully, as if a sudden dread suspicion broke upon her 
mind. " When what is done .? " 

He paused a moment to choose his words, what time 
she stared intently into the face that gleamed white in the 
surrounding gloom. 

" When that poor ailing spirit is at rest." And he 
added : " It will be soon." 

'' Thou hast said the same aforetime, Robin. Yet it 
has not so fallen out." 

"' She has clung to life beyond what could have been 
believed of her condition," he explained, unconscious of 



The Barren Wooing 151 

any sinister ambiguity. ^* But tlie end, I know, is very 
near — a matter but of days." 

'* Of days ! " she shivered, and moved forward to the 
edge of the terrace, he keeping step beside her. Then she 
stood awhile in silence, looking down at the dark oily surge 
of water. " You loved her once, Robin ? " she asked, in a 
queer, unnatural voice. 

'' I never loved but once," answered that perfect courtier. 

'•' Yet you married her — men say it was a love marriage. 
It was a marriage, anyway, and you can speak so calmly 
of her death ? " Her tone was brooding. She sought 
understanding that should silence her own lingering doubt 
of him. 

" Where lies the blame ? Who made me what I am ? " 
Again his bold arm encompassed her. Side by side they 
peered down through the gloom at the rushing waters, and 
he seized an image from them. " Our love is like that 
seething tide," he said. " To resist it is to labour in 
agony awhile, and then to perish." 

" And to yield is to be swept away." 

" To happiness," he cried, and reverted to his earher 
prayer. " Say that when . . . that afterwards, I may 
claim you for my own. Be true to yourself, obey the voice 
of instinct, and so win to happiness." 

She looked up at him, seeking to scan the handsome 
face in that dim hght that baffled her, and he observed the 
tumultuous heave of her white breast. 

'' Can I trust thee, Robin ? Can I trust thee ? Answer 
me true ! " she implored him, adorably weak, entirely 
woman now. 

" What does your own heart answer you ? " quoth he, 
leaning close above her. 



152 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" I think I can, Robin. And, anyway, I must. I 
cannot help myself. I am but a woman, after all," she 
murmured, and sighed, " Be it as thou wilt. Come to 
me again when thou art free." 

He bent lower, murmuring incoherently, and she put 
up a hand to pat his swarthy bearded cheek. 

" I shall make thee greater than any man in England, 
so thou make me happier than any woman." 

He caught the hand in his and kissed it passionately, 
his soul singing a triumph song within him. Norfolk and 
Sussex and those other scowling ones should soon be 
w^histled to the master's heel. 

As they turned arm in arm into the gallery to retrace 
their steps, they came suddenly face to face with a slim, 
sleek gentleman, who bowed profoundly, a smile upon his 
crafty, shaven, priestly face. In a smooth voice and an 
accent markedly foreign, he explained that he, too, sought 
the cool of the terrace, not thinking to intrude ; and 
upon that, bowing again, he passed on and effaced himself. 
It was Alvarez de Quadra, Bishop of Aquila, the argus- 
eyed ambassador of Spain. 

The young face of the Queen hardened. 
*' I would I were as well served abroad as the King of 
Spain is here," she said aloud, that the retreating ambas- 
sador might hear the dubious compliment ; and for my 
lord's ear alone she added under her breath : " The spy ! 
Philip of Spain will hear of this." 

" So that he hears something more, what shall it 
signify ? " quoth my lord, and laughed. 

They paced the length of the gallery in silence, past the 
yeoman of the guard, who kept his watch, and into the 
first antechamber. Perhaps it was that meeting with 



The Bar yen Wooing 153 

de Quadra and my lord's answer to her comment that 
prompted what now she asked : " What is it ails her, 
Robin ? " 

" A wasting sickness," he answered, never doubting to 
whom the question alluded. 

** You said, I think, that ... that the end is very near." 

He caught her meaning instantly. " Indeed, if she is 
not dead already, she is very nearly so." 

He lied, for never had Amy Dudley been in better 
health. And yet he spoke the truth, for in so much as her 
life depended upon his will, it was as good as spent. This 
was, he knew, a decisive moment of his career. The hour 
was big with fate. If now he were weak or hesitant, the 
chance might slip aw^ay and be for ever lost to him. Eliza- 
beth's moods were as uncertain as were certain the hostile 
activities of my lord's enemies. He must strike quickly 
whilst she was in her present frame of mind, and bring her 
to wedlock, be it in public or in private. But first he 
must shake off the paralysing encumbrance of that house- 
wife down at Cumnor. 

I believe — from evidence that I account abundant — 
that he considered it with the cold remorselessness of the 
monstrous egotist he was. An upstart, great-grandson 
to a carpenter, noble only in two descents, and in both 
of them stained by the block, he found a queen — the 
victim of a physical passion that took no account of the 
worthlessness underlying his splendid exterior — reaching 
out a hand to raise him to a throne. Being what he was, 
he weighed his young wife's life at naught in the evil 
scales of his ambition. And yet he had loved her once^ 
more truly perhaps than he could now pretend to love 
the Queen. 



154 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

It was some ten years since, as a lad of eighteen, lie had 
taken Sir John Robsart's nineteen-year-old daughter to 
wife. She had brought him considerable wealth and still 
more devotion. Because of this devotion she was content 
to spend her days at Cumnor, whilst he ruffled it at court ; 
content to take such crumbs of attention as he could spare 
her upon occasion. And during the past year, whilst 
he had been plotting her death, she had been diligently 
caring for his interests and fostering the prosperity of the 
Berkshire estate. If he thought of this at ail, he allowed 
no weakly sentiment to turn him from his purpose. There 
was too much at stake for that — a throne, no less. 

And so, oi\ the morning after that half-surrender of 
Elizabeth's, we find my lord closeted with his henchman, 
Sir Richard Verney. Sir Richard — like his master — was 
a greedy, unscrupulous, ambitious scoundrel, prepared to 
go to any lengths for the sake of such worldly advancement 
as it lay in my lord's power to give him. My lord perforce 
used perfect frankness with this perfect servant. 

" Thou'lt rise or fall with me, Dick," quoth he. '' Help 
me up, then, and so mount with me. When I am King, 
as soon now I shall be, look to me. Now to the thing that 
is to do. Thou'lt have guessed it." 

To Sir Richard it was an easy guess, considering how 
much already he had been about this business. He sig- 
nified as much. 

]\Iy lord shifted in his elbow-chair, and drew his em- 
broidered bedgown of yellow satin closer about his shapely 
limbs. 

'' Hast failed me twice before, Richard," said he. 
*' God's death, man, fail me not again, or the last chance 
may go the way of the others. There's a magic in the 



The Barren Wooing 155 

number three. See that I profit by it, or I am undone, 
and thou with me." 

" I'd not have failed before, but for that suspicious 
dotard Bayley," grumbled Verney. " Your lordship 
bade me see that all was covered." 

" Aye, aye. And I bid thee so again. On thy life, leave 
no footprints by which we may be tracked. Bayley is 
not the only physician in Oxford. About it, then, and 
swiftly. Time is the very soul of fortune in this business, 
with the Spaniard straining at the leash, and Cecil and 
the rest pleading his case with her. Succeed, and thy 
fortune's made ; fail, and trouble not to seek me again." 

Sir Richard bowed, and took his leave. As he reached 
the door, his lordship stayed him. " If thou bungle, do 
not look to me. The court goes to Windsor to-morrow. 
Bring me word there within the week." He rose, mag- 
nificently tall and stately, in his bedgown of embroidered 
yellow satin, his handsome head thrown back, and went 
after his retainer. " Thou'lt not fail me, Dick," said he, 
a hand upon the lesser scoundrel's shoulder. '' There is 
much at issue for me, and for thee with me." 

" I will not fail you, my lord," Sir Richard rashly 
promised, and on that they parted. 

Sir Richard did not mean to fail. He knew the import- 
ance of succeeding, and he appreciated the urgency of the 
business as much as did my lord himself. But between his 
cold, remorseless will to succeed and success itself there 
lay a gulf which it needed all his resource to bridge. He 
paid a short visit to Lady Robert at Cumnor, and pro- 
fessed deepest concern to find in her a pallor and an ailing 
air which no one else had yet observed. He expressed 
himself on the subject to Mrs. Buttelar and the other 



156 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

members of her ladyship's household, reproaching them 
with their lack of care of their mistress. Mrs. Buttelar 
became indignant under his reproaches. 

" Nay, now, Sir Richard, do you wonder that my lady 
is sad and downcast with such tales as are going of my 
lord's doings at court, and of what there is 'twixt the Queen 
and him ? Her ladyship may be too proud to complain, 
but she suffers the more for that, poor lamb. There was 
talk of a divorce awhile ago that got to her ears." 

" Old wives' tales," snorted Sir Richard. 

"Likely," agreed Mrs. Buttelar. "Yet when my, lord 
neither comes to Cumnor, nor requires her ladyship to go 
to him, what is she to think, poor soul ? " 

Sir Richard made light of all, and went off to Oxford 
to find a physician more accommodating than Dr. Bayley. 
But Dr. Bayley had talked too much, and it was in vain 
that Sir Richard pleaded with each of the two physicians 
he sought that her ladyship was ailing — " sad and heavy " 
— and that he must have a potion for her. 

Each in turn shook his head. They had no medicine 
for sorrow, was their discreet answer. From his descrip- 
tion of her condition, said each, it was plain that .her 
ladyship's sickness was of the mind, and, considering the 
tales that were afloat, neither was surprised. 

Sir Richard went back to his Oxford lodging with the 
feeling of a man checkmated. For two whole days of that 
precious time he lay there considering what to do. He 
thought of going to seek a physician in Abingdon. But 
fearing no better success in that quarter, fearing, indeed, 
that in view of the rumours abroad he would merely be 
multiplying what my lord called " footprints," he decided 
to take some other way to his master's ends. He was a 



The Barren Wooing 157 

resourceful, inventive scoundrel, and soon he had devised 
a plan. 

On Friday he wrote from Oxford to Lady Robert, stating 
that he had a communication for her on the subject of his 
lordship as secret as it was urgent. That he desired to 
come to her at Cumnor again, but dared not do so openly. 
He would come if she would contrive that her servants 
should be absent, and he exhorted her to let no one of 
them know that he was coming, else he might be ruined, 
out of his desire to serve her. 

That letter he dispatched by the hand of his servant 
Nunweek, desiring him to bring an answer. It was a 
communication that had upon her ladyship's troubled 
mind precisely the effect that the rascal conceived. There 
was about Sir Richard's personality nothing that could 
suggest the villain. He was a smiling, blue-eyed, florid 
gentleman, of a kindly manner that led folk to trust him. 
And on the occasion of his late visit to Cumnor he had 
displayed such tender solicitude that her ladyship — 
starved of affection as she was — had been deeply touched. 

His letter so cunningly couched filled her with vague 
alarm and with anxiety. She had heard so many and 
such afflicting rum^ours, and had received in my lord's 
cruel neglect of her such circumstantial confirmation of 
them, that she fastened avidly upon what she deemed 
the chance of ^ learning at last the truth. Sir Richard 
Verney had my lord's confidence, and was much about the 
court in his attendance upon my lord. He would know 
the truth, and what could this letter mean but that he 
was disposed to tell it. 

So she sent him back a line in answer, bidding him come 
on Sunday afternoon. She would contrive to be alone 



158 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

in the house, so that he need not fear being seen by 
any. 

As she promised, so she performed, and on the Sunday 
packed off her household to the fair that was being held 
at Abingdon that day, using insistence with the reluctant, 
and particularly with one of her women, a Mrs. Odding- 
sell, who expressed herself strongly against leaving her 
ladyship alone in that lonely house. At length, however, 
the last of them was got off, and my lady was left im- 
patiently to await her secret visitor. It was late afternoon 
when he arrived, accompanied by Nunweek, whom he left 
to hold the horses under the chestnuts in the avenue 
Himself he reached the house across the garden, where 
the blighting hand of autumn was already at work. 

Within the porch he found her waiting, fretted by her 
impatience. 

" It is very good in you to have come. Sir Richard," 
was her gracious greeting. 

" I am your ladyship's devoted servant," was his suffi- 
cient answer, and he doffed his plumed bonnet, and bowed 
low before her. " We shall be private in your bower 
above stairs," he added. 

" Why, we are private anywhere. I am all alone, as 
you desired." 

" That is very wise — most wise," said he. " Will your 
ladyship lead the way ? " 

So they went up that steep, spiral staircase, which had 
loomed so prominently in the plans the ingenious scoundrel 
had evolved. Across the gallery on the first floor they 
entered a little room whose windows overlooked the 
garden. This was her bower — an intimate cosy room, 
reflecting on every hand the gentle, industrious personality 



The Barren Wooing 159 

of the owner. On an oak table near the window were 
spread some papers and account-books concerned with 
the estate — with which she had sought to beguile the 
time of waiting. She led the way towards this, and, 
sinking into the high-backed chair that stood before it, 
she looked up at him expectantly. She was pale, there 
were dark stains under her eyes, and wistful lines had 
crept into the sweet face of that neglected wife. 

Contemplating his poor victim now, Sir Richard may 
have compared her with the woman by whom my lord 
desired so impatiently to supplant her. She was tall 
and beautifully shaped, despite an almost maidenly 
slenderness. Her countenance was gentle and adorable, 
with its soft grey eyes and light brown hair, and tender, 
wistful mouth. 

It was not difficult to believe that Lord Robert had as 
ardently desired her to wife five years ago as he now 
desired to be rid of her. Then he obeyed the insistent 
spur of passion ; now he obeyed the remorseless spur of 
ambition. In reality, then as now, his beacon-light was 
love of self. 

Seeing her so frail and trusting, trembling in her anxious 
impatience to hear the news of her lord which he had 
promised her, Sir Richard may have felt some pang of 
pity. But, like my lord, he was of those whose love of 
self suffers the rivalry of no weak emotion. 

'• Your news. Sir Richard," she besought him, her 
dove-like glance upon his florid face — less florid now than 
vras its wont. 

He leaned against the table, his back to the window. 
" Why, it is briefly this," said he. " My lord . . ." 
And then he checked, and fell into a listening attitude. 



i6o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

*' What was that ? Did you hear anything, my 
lady ? " 

" No. What is it ? " Her face betrayed alarm, her 
anxiety mounting under so much mystery. 

*' Sh ! Stay you here,'' he enjoined. " If we. are spied 
upon . . ." He left the sentence there. Already he was 
moving quickly, stealthily, towards the door. He paused 
before opening it. " Stay where you are, my lady," he 
enjoined again, so gravely that she could have no thought 
of disobeying him. '* I will return at once." 

He stepped oat, closed the door, and crossed to the 
stairs. There he stooped. From his pouch he had drawn 
a fine length of whipcord, attached at one end to a tiny 
bodkin of needle sharpness. That bodkin he drove into 
the edge of one of the panels of the wainscot, in line with 
the topmost step ; drawing the cord taut at a height of 
a foot or so above this step, he made fast its other end to 
the newel-post at the stair-head. He had so rehearsed 
the thing in his mind that the performance of it occupied 
but a few seconds. Such dim light of that autumn after- 
noon as reached the spot would leave that fine cord 
invisible. 

Sir Richard went back to her ladyship. She had not 
moved in his absence, so brief as scarcely to have left her 
time in which to resolve upon disobeying his injunction. 

'" We move in secret like conspirators," said he, '* and 
so we are easily affrighted. I should have known it could 
be none but my lord himself . . ." 

*' My lord ! " she interrupted, coming excitedly to her 
feet. '' Lord Robert ? " 

"To be sure, my lady. It was he had need to visit 
you in secret — for- did the Queen have knowledge of his 



The Barren Wooing i6i 

coining here, it would mean the Tower for him. You 
cannot think what, out of love for you, his lordship suffers. 
The Queen . . ." 

*• But do you say that he is here, man . . . here ? " 
her voice shrilled up in excitement. 

" He is below, my lady. Such is his peril that he dared 
not set foot in Cumnor until he was certain beyond doubt 
that you are here alone." 

" He is below ! " she cried, and a flush dyed her pale 
cheeks, a light of gladness quickened her sad eyes. Already 
she had gathered from his cunning words a new and com- 
forting explanation of the things reported to her. " He 
is below ! " she repeated. " Oh ! " She turned from him, 
and in an instant was speeding towards the door. 

He stood rooted there, his nether lip between his teeth, 
his face a ghastly white, whilst she ran on. 

" My lord ! Robin ! Robin ! " he heard her calling, a3 
she crossed the corridor. Then came a piercing scream 
that echoed through the silent house ; a pause ; a crashing 
thud below ; and — silence. 

Sir Richard remained by the table, immovable. Blood 
was trickling down his chin. He had sunk his teeth through 
his lip when that scream rang out. x\ long moment thus, 
as if entranced, awe-stricken. Then he braced himself, 
and went forward, reeling at first like a drunken man. 
But by the time he had reached the stairs he was master 
of himself again. Swiftly, for all his trembling fingers, 
he unfastened the cord's end from the newel-post. The 
wrench upon it had already pulled the bodkin from the 
wainscot. He went down that abrupt spiral staircase at 
a moderate pace, mechanically coiling the length of whip- 
cord, and bestowing it with the bodkin in his pouch again, 

II 



i62 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

and all the while his eyes were fixed upon the grey bundle 
that lay so still at the stairs' foot. 

He came to it at last, and, pausing, looked more closely. 
He was thankful that there was not the need to touch it. 
The position of the brown-haired head was such as to leave 
no doubt of the complete success of his design. Her neck 
was broken. Lord Robert Dudley was free to marry the 
Queen. 

Deliberately Sir Richard stepped over the huddled 
body of that poor victim of a knave's ambition, crossed 
the hall, and passed out, closing the door. An excellent 
day's work, thought he, most excellently accomplished. 
The servants, returning from Abingdon Fair on that 
Sunday evening, would find her there. They would 
publish the fact that in their absence her ladyship had 
fallen downstairs and broken her neck, and that was the 
end of the matter. 



But that was not the end at all. Fate, the ironic inter- 
loper, had taken a hand in this evil game. 

The court had moved a few days earlier to Windsor, 
and thither on the Friday — the 6th of September — came 
Alvarez de Quadra to seek the definite answer which the 
Queen had promised him on the subject of the Spanish 
marriage. What he had seen that night at Whitehall, 
coupled with his mistrust of her promises and experience 
of her fickleness, had rendered him uneasy. Either she 
was trifling with him, or else she was behaving in a manner 
utterly unbecoming the future v/ife of the Archduke. In 
either case some explanation v;as necessary. De Quadra 
must know where he stood. Having failed to obtain an 



The Barren Wooing 163 

audience before the court left London, he had followed 
it to Windsor, cursing all women and contemplating the 
advantages of the Salic law. 

He found at Windsor an atmosphere of constraint, and 
it was not until the morrow that he obtained an audience 
with the Queen. Even then this was due to chance rather 
than to design on the part of Elizabeth. For they, met 
on the terrace as she was returning from hunting. She 
dismissed those about her, including the stalwart Robert 
Dudley, and, alone with de Quadra, invited him to speak. 

" Madame," he said, " I am writing to my master, and 
I desire to know whether your Majesty would wish me 
to add anything to what you have announced already as 
your intention regarding the Archduke." 

She knit her brows. The wily Spaniard fenced so 
closely that there was no alternative but to come to grips. 

" Why, sir," she answered dryly, " you may tell his 
Majesty that I have come to an absolute decision — which 
is that I will not marry the Archduke." 

The colour mounted to the Spaniard's sallow cheeks. 
Iron self-control alone saved him from uttering unpardon- 
able words. Even so he spoke sternly : 

" This, madame, is not what you had led me to believe 
when last we talked upon the subject." 

At another time Elizabeth might have turned upon 
him and rent him for that speech. But it happened that 
she Vv^as in high good-humour that afternoon, and disposed 
to indulgence. She laughed, surveying herself in the 
small steel mirror that dangled from her waist. 

'* You are ungallant to remind me, my lord," said she. 
" My sex, you may have heard, is privileged to change 
of mind." 

II* 



164 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

*' Then, madame, I pray that you may change it yet 
again." His tone was bitter. 

"Your prayer will not be heard. This time I am resolved." 

De Quadra bowed. " The King, my master, will not 
be pleased, I fear." 

She looked him straightly in the face, her dark eyes 
kindUng. 

" God's death ! " said she, " I marry to please myself, 
and not the King your master." 

" You are resolved on marriage then ? " flashed he. 

" And it please you," she mocked him archly, her mood 
of joyousness already conquering her momentary indig- 
nation. 

" What pleases you must please me also, madame," 
he answered, in a tone so cold that it belied his words. 
" That it please you is reason enough why you should 
marry . . . Whom did your Majesty say ? " 

" Nay. I named no names. Yet one so astute might 
hazard a shrewd guess." Half-challenging, half-coy, she 
eyed him over her fan„ 

" A guess ? Nay, madame. I might affront your 
Majestyc/' 

" How so ? " 

" If I were deluded by appearances. If I named a 
subject who signally enjoys your royal favour." 

" You mean Lord Robert Dudley." She paled a little, 
and her bosom's heave was quickened. " Why should 
the guess affront me r " 

" Because a queen — a wise queen, madame— does not 
mate with a subject — particularly with one who has a 
wife already." 

He had stung her. He had wounded at once the pride 



The Barren Wooing 165 

of the woman and the dignity of the queen, yet in a way 
that made it difficult for her to take direct offence. She 
bit her lip and mastered her surge of anger. Then she 
laughed, a thought sneeringly. 

" Why, as to my Lord Robert's wife, it seems you are 
less well-informed than usual, sir. Lady Robert Dudley 
is dead, or very nearly so." 

And as blank amazement overspread his face, she passed 
upon her way and left him. 

But anon, considering, she grew vaguely uneasy, and 
that very night expressed her afflicting doubt to my lord, 
reporting to him de Quadra's words. His lordship, who 
was mentally near-sighted, laughed. 

" He'll change his tone before long," said he. 

She set her hands upon his shoulders, and looked up 
adoringly into his handsome gipsy face. Never had he 
known her so fond as in these last days since her surrender 
to him that night upon the terrace at Whitehall, never 
had she been more the woman and less the queen in her 
bearing towards him. 

" You are sure, Robin ? You are quite sure ? " she pleaded. 

He drew her close, she yielding herself to his embrace. 
" With so much at stake could I be less than sure, sweet ? " 
said he, and so convinced her — the more easily since he 
afforded her the conviction she desired. 

That was on the night of Saturday, and early on Monday 
came the nevv^s which justified him of his assurances. 
It was brought him to Windsor by one of Amy's Cumnor 
servants, a fellow named Bowes, who, with the others, 
had been away at Abingdon Fair yesterday afternoon, 
and had returned to find his mistress dead at the stairs' 
foot — the result of an accident, as all believed. 



i66 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

It was not quite tlie news that my lord had been expect- 
ing. It staggered him a little that an accident so very 
opportune should have come to resolve his difficulties, 
obviating the need for recourse to those more dangerous 
measures with which he had charged Sir Richard Verney. 
He perceived how suspicion might now fall upon himself, 
how his enemies would direct it, and on the instant made 
provision. There and then he seized a pen, and wrote to 
his kinsman, Sir Thomas Blount, who even then was on 
his way to Cumnor. He stated in the letter what he had 
learnt from Bowes, bade Blount engage the coroner to 
make the strictest investigation, and send for Amy's 
natural brother, Appleyard. " Have no respect to any 
living person," was the final injunction of that letter 
which he sent Blount by the hand of Bowes. 

And, then, before he could carry to the Queen the news 
of this accident which had broken his matrimonial shackles. 
Sir Richard Verney arrived with the true account. He 
had expected praise and thanks from his master. Instead, 
he met first dismay, and then anger and fierce reproaches. 

" My lord, this is unjust," the faithful retainer protested. 
" Knowing the urgency, I took the only way — contrived 
the accident." 

" Pray God," said Dudley, " that the jury find it to 
have been an accident ; for if the truth should come to 
be discovered, I leave you to the consequences. I warned 
you of that before you engaged in this. Look for no help 
from me." 

" I look for none," said Sir Richard, stung to hot con- 
tempt by the meanness and cowardice so characteristic 
of the miserable egotist he served. " Nor will there be 
the need, for I have left no footprints 



The Barren Wooing i6'j 

*' I hope that may be so, for I tell you, man, that I have 
ordered a strict inquiry, bidding them have no respect to 
any living person, and to that I shall adhere." 

" And if, in spite of that, I am not hanged ? " quoth 
Sir Richard, a sneer upon his white face. 

" Come to me again when the affair is closed, and we 
will talk of it." 

Sir Richard went out, rage and disgust in his heartj 
leaving my lord with rage and fear in his. 

Grown calmer now, my lord dressed himself with care 
and sought the Queen to tell her of the accident that had 
removed the obstacle to their marriage. And that same 
night her Majesty coldly informed de Quadra that Lady 
Robert Dudley had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken 
her neck. 

The Spaniard received the information with a counte- 
nance that was inscrutable. 

" Your Majesty's gift of prophecy is not so widely known 
as it deserves to be," was his cryptic comment. 

She stared at him blankly a moment. Then a sudden 
uneasy memory awakened by his words, she drew him 
forward to a window embrasure apart from those who 
had stood about her, and for greater security addressed 
him, as he tells us, in Italian. 

" I do not think I understand you, sir. Will you be 
plain with me r " She stood erect and stiff, and frowned 
upon him after the manner of her bullying father. But 
de Quadra held the trumps, and was not easily intimidated. 

" About the prophecy ? " said he. " Why, did not your 
Majesty foretell the poor lady's death a full day before 
it came to pass ? Did you not say that she was already 
dead, or nearly so ? " 



i68 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

He saw her blench ; saw fear stare from those dark 
eyes that could be so very bold. Then her ever-ready 
anger followed swiftly. 

" 'Sblood, man ! What do you imply ? " she cried, 
and went on without waiting for his answer. " The poor 
woman was sick and ill, and must soon have succumbed ; 
it will no doubt be found that the accident which antici- 
pated nature was due to her condition." 

Gently he shook his head, relishing her discomfiture, 
taking satisfaction in torturing her who had flouted him 
and his master, in punishing her whom he had every 
reason to believe guilty. 

" Your Majesty, I fear, has been ill-informed on that 
score. The poor lady was in excellent health — and like 
to have lived for many years — at least, so I gather from 
Sir William Cecil, whose inform.ation is usually exact." 

She clutched his arm. " You told him what I had said ? " 

*' It was indiscreet, perhaps. Yet, how was I to 
know . . , ? " He left his sentence there. " I but ex- 
pressed my chagrin at your decision on the score of the 
Archduke — hardly a wise decision, if I may be so bold," 
he added slyly. 

She caught the suggestion of a bargain, and became 
instantly suspicious. 

" You transcend the duties of your office, my lord," 
she rebuked him, and turned away. 

But soon that night she was closeted with Dudley, and 
closely questioning him about the affair. My lord was 
mightily vehement. 

'* I take Heaven to be my witness," quoth he, when 
she all but taxed him with having procured his lady's 
death, " that I am innocent of any part in it. My in- 



The Barren Wooing 169 

junctions to Blount, who has gone to Cumnor, are that 
the matter be sifted without respect to any person, and 
if it can be shown that this is other than the accident I 
deem it, the murderer shall hang." 

She flung her arms about his neck, and laid her head 
on his shoulder. " Oh, Robin, Robin, I am full of fears," 
she wailed, and was nearer to tears than he had ever seen 
her. 

But, anon, as the days passed their fears diminished, 
and finally the jury at Cumnor — delayed in their finding, 
and spurred by my lord to exhaustive inquiries — returned 
a verdict of " found dead," which in all the circumstances 
left his lordship — who was known, moreover, to have been 
at Windsor when his lady died — fully acquitted. Both 
he and the Queen took courage from that finding, and 
made no secret of it now that they would very soon be w^ed. 

But there were many whom that finding did not con- 
vince, who read my lord too well, and would never suffer 
him to reap the fruits of his evil deed. Prominent among 
these were Arundel — who himself had aimed at the Queen's 
hand — Norfolk and Pembroke, and behind them was a 
great mass of the people. Indignation against Lord 
Robert was blazing out, fanned by such screaming preachers 
as Lever, who, from the London pulpits, denounced the 
projected marriage, hinting darkly at the truth of Amy 
Dudley's death. 

What was hinted at home was openly expressed abroad, 
and in Paris Mary Stuart ventured a cruel witticism that 
Elizabeth was to conserve in her memory : " The Queen 
of England," she said, " is about to marry her horse- 
keeper, who has killed his wife to make a place for her." 

Yet Elizabeth persisted in her intent to marry Dudley, 



170 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

until the sober Cecil conveyed to her towards the end of 
that month of September some notion of the rebelHon 
that was smouldering. 

She flared out at him, of course. But he stood his 
ground. 

" There is," he reminded her, " this unfortunate matter 
of a prophecy, as the Bishop of Aquila persists in calling it.'' 

'' God's Body ! Is the rogue blabbing ? " 

" What else did your Majesty expect from a man smart- 
ing under a sense of injury ? He has published it broad- 
cast that on the day before Lady Robert broke her neck, 
you told him that she was dead or nearly so. And he 
argues from it a guilty foreknowledge on your Majesty's 
part of what was planned." 

" A guilty foreknowledge ! " She almost choked in 
rage, and then fell to swearing as furiously in that moment 
as old King Harry at his worst. 

" Madame ! " he cried, shaken by her vehemence. " I 
but report the phrase he uses. It is not mine." 

" Do you believe it ? " 

" I do not, madame. If I did I should not be here at 
present." 

'^ Does any subject of mine believe it ? " 

" They suspend their judgment. They wait to learn 
the truth from the sequel." 

'^ You mean ? " 

" That if your motive prove to be such as de Quadra 
and others allege, they will be in danger of believing." 

'■ Be plain, man, in God's name. What exactly is 
alleged ? " 

He obeyed her very fully. 

" That my lord contrived the killing of his wife, so that 



The Barren Wooing 171 

he might have Hberty to marry your Majesty, and that 
your Majesty was privy to the deed." He spoke out 
boldly, and hurried on before she could let loose her wrath. 
" It is still in your power, madame, to save your honour, 
which is now in peril. But there is only one way in which 
you can accompHsh it. If you put from you all thought 
of marrying Lord Robert, England will believe that 
de Quadra and those others lied. If you persist and carry 
out your intention, you proclaim the truth of^his report ; 
and you see what must inevitably follow." 

She saw indeed, and, seeing, was afraid. 

Within a few hours of that interview she delivered her 
answer to Cecil, which was that she had no intention of 
marrying Dudley. 

Because of her fear she saved her honour by sacrificing 
her heart, by renouncing marriage with the only man 
she could have taken for her mate of all who had wooed 
her. Yet the wound of that renunciation was slow to 
heal. She trifled with the notion of other marriages, but 
ever and anon, in her despair, perhaps, we see her turning 
longing eyes towards the handsome Lord Robert, later 
made Earl of Leicester. Once, indeed, some six years 
after Amy's death, there was again some talk of her marry- 
ing him., which was quickly quelled by a reopening of the 
question of how Amy died. Between these two, between 
the fulfilment of her desire and his ambition, stood the 
irreconcilable ghost of his poor murdered wife. 

Perhaps it was some thought of this that found ex- 
pression in her passionate outburst when she learnt of the 
birth of Mary Stuart's child : " The Queen of Scots^is 
lighter of a fair son ; and I am but a barren stock," 



VI L Sir fudas 

The Betrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh 



VI L Sir Judas 



SIR WALTER was met on landing at Plymouth 
from his ill-starred voyage to El Dorado by Sir 
Lewis Stukeley, which was but natural, seeing that Sir 
Lewis was not only Vice-Admiral of Devon, but also Sir 
Walter's very good friend and kinsman. 

If Sir Walter doubted whether it was in his quality 
as kinsman or as Vice-Admiral that Sir Lewis met him, 
the cordiality of the latter's embrace and the noble enter- 
tainment following at the house of Sir Christopher Hare, 
near the port, whither Sir Lewis conducted him, set this 
doubt at rest and relighted the lamp of hope in the despair- 
ing soul of our adventurer. In Sir Lewis he saw only his 
kinsman — his very good friend and kinsman, to insist 
upon Stukeley's own description of himself — at a time 
when of all others in his crowded life he needed the 
support of a kinsm-an and the guidance of a friend. 

You know the story of this Sir Walter, who had been 
one of the brightest ornaments of the re/gn of Queen 
Elizabeth, and might have added lustre to that of King 
James, had not his Sowship — to employ the title bestowed 
upon that prince by his own queen — been too mean of 
soul to appreciate the man's great worth. Courtier, 
philosopher, soldier, man of letters and man of action 

175 



176 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

alike, Ralegh was at once the greatest prose-writer, and 
one of the greatest captains of his age, the last survivor 
of that glorious company — whose other members were 
Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins — that had given 
England supremacy upon the seas, that had broken the 
power and lowered the pride of Spain. 

His was a name that had resounded, to the honour and 
glory of England, throughout the world, a name that, 
like Drake's, was a thing of hate and terror to King Philip 
and his Spaniards ; yet the King of Scots, unclean of 
body and of mind, who had succeeded to the throne of 
Elizabeth, must affect ignorance of that great name 
which shall never die while England lives. 

When the splendid courtier stood before him — for at 
fifty Sir Walter was still handsome of person and magni- 
ficent of apparel — James looked him over and inquired 
who he might be. When they had told him : 

" I've ratvly heard of thee," quoth the royal punster, who 
sought by such atrocities of speech to be acclaimed a wit. 

It was ominous of what must follow, and soon there- 
after you see this great and gallant gentleman arrested 
on a trumped-up charge of high treason, bullied, vitu- 
perated, and insulted by venal, peddling lawyers, and, 
finally, although his wit and sincerity had shattered every 
fragment of evidence brought against him, sentenced to 
death. Thus far James went ; but he hesitated to go 
further, hesitated to carry out the sentence. Sir Walter 
had too many friends in England then ; the memory of 
his glorious deeds was still too fresh in the public mind, 
and execution might have been attended by serious con- 
sequences for King James. Besides, one at least of the 
main objects was achieved. Sir Walter's broad acres 



Sir Judas 177 



were confiscate by virtue of that sentence, and King 
James wanted the land — filched thus from one who was 
England's pride — to bestow it upon one of those golden 
calves of his who were England's shame. 

" I maun hae the land for Carr. I maun hae it," was his 
brazen and peevish answer to an appeal against the con- 
fiscation. 

For thirteen years Sir Walter lay in the Tower, under 
that sentence of death passed in 1603, enjoying after a 
season a certain liberty, visited there by his dear lady and 
his friends, among whom was Henry, Prince of Wales, who 
did not hesitate to publish that no man but his father 
—whom he detested — would keep such a bird in a cage. 
He beguiled the time in literary and scientific pursuits, 
distilling his essences and writing that stupendous work 
of his, " The History of the World." Thus old age crept 
upon him ; but far from quenching the fires of enterprise 
within his adventurer's soul, it brought a restlessness that 
urged him at last to make a bid for liberty. Despairing 
of winning it from the clemency of James, he applied his 
wits to extracting it from the King's cupidity. 

Throughout his life, since the day when first he had 
brought himself to the notice of a Queen by making of his 
cloak a carpet for her feet, he had retained side by side 
with the dignity of the sage and the greatness of the hero, 
the craft and opportunism of the adventurer. His oppor- 
tunity now was the straitened condition of the royal 
treasury, a hint of which had been let fall by Winwood, 
the Secretary of State. He announced at once that he knew 
of a gold mine in Guiana, the El Dorado of the Spaniards. 

On his return from a voyage to Guiana in 1595, he had 
written of it thusj 

12 



178 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" There the common soldier shall fight for gold instead 
of pence, pay himself with plates half a foot broad, whereas 
he breaks his bones in other wars for provant and penury. 
Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour 
and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful 
cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more 
sepulchres filled with treasure than either Cortez found in 
Mexico or Pizarro in Peru." 

Winwood now reminded him that as a consequence 
many expeditions had gone out, but failed to discover 
any of these things. 

" That," said Ralegh, " is because those adventurers 
were ignorant alike of the country and of the art of con- 
ciliating its inhabitants. Were I permitted to go, I 
would make Guiana to England what Peru has been to 
Spain," 

That statement, reported to James in his need, was 
enough to fire his cupidity, and when Ralegh had further 
added that he would guarantee to the Crown one-fifth of 
the treasure without asking any contribution towards the 
adventure either in money or in ships, he was permitted 
to come forth and prepare for the expedition. 

His friends came to his assistance, and in March of 1617 
he set sail for El Dorado with a well-manned and well- 
equipped fleet of fourteen ships, the Earls of Arundel and 
Pembroke standing sureties for his return. 

From the outset the fates were unpropitious. Disaster 
closed the adventure. Gondomar, the Ambassador of 
Spain at Whitehall, too well-informed of what was afoot, 
had warned his master. Spanish ships waited to frustrate 
Sir Walter, who was under pledge to avoid all conflict 
with the forces of King Philip. But conflict there was, and 



Sir Judas I79 



bloodshed in plenty, about the city of Manoa, which the 
Spaniards held as the key to the country into which the 
English adventurers sought to penetrate. Among the 
slain were the Governor of Manoa, who was Gondomar's 
own brother, and Sir Walter's eldest son. 

To Ralegh, waiting at the mouth of the Orinoco, came 
his beaten forces in retreat, with the terrible news of a 
happening that meant his ruin. Half-maddened, his 
anguish increased by the loss of his boy, he upbraided them 
so fiercely that Keymis, who had been in charge of the 
expedition, shut himself up in his cabin and shot himself 
with a pocket-pistol. Mutiny followed, and Whitney — 
most trusted of Sir Walter's captains~-set sail for England, 
being followed by six other ships of that fleet, which 
meanwhile had been reduced to twelve. With the remain- 
ing five the stricken Sir Walter had followed more at 
leisure. What need to hurry ? Disgrace, and perhaps 
death, awaited him in England. He knew the power of 
Spain with James, who was so set upon a Spanish marriage 
for his heir, knew Spain's hatred of himself, and what elo- 
quence it would gather in the mouth of Gondomar, intent 
upon avenging his brother's death. 

He feared the worst, and so was glad upon landing to 
have by him a kinsman upon whom he could lean for 
counsel and guidance in this the darkest hour of all his 
life. Sitting late that night in the library of Sir Christo- 
pher Hare's house, Sir Walter told his cousin in detail the 
story of his misadventure, and confessed to his misgivings.J 

" My brains are broken," was his cry. 

Stukeley combed his beard in thought. He had httle 
comfort to offer. 

" It was not expected," said he, " that you would return. 

'12* 



i8o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

** Not expected ? " Sir Walter's bowed white head was 
suddenly flung back. Indignation blazed in the eyes that 
age had left undimmed. " What act in all my life justified 
the belief I should be false to honour ? My danger here 
was made quite plain, and Captain King would have had 
me steer a course for France, where I had found a welcome 
and a harbour. But to consent I must have been false to 
my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who were sureties 
to the King for my return. Life is still sweet to me, despite 
my three-score years and more, but honour is sweeter still." 

And then, because life was sweet, he bluntly asked his 
cousin : " What is the King's intent by me ? " 

" Nay, now," said Stukcley, " who shall know what 
passes in the King's mind ? From the signs, I judge your 
case to be none so desperate. You have good friends in 
plenty, among whom, although the poorest, count myself 
the first. Anon, when you are rested, we'll to London by 
easy stages, baiting at the houses of your friends, and 
enlisting their good offices on your behalf." 

Ralegh took counsel on the matter with Captain King, 
a bluff, tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to him 
body and soul. 

" Sir Lewis proposes it, eh ? " quoth the hardy seaman. 
" And Sir Lewis is Vice-Admiral of Devon ? He is not 
by chance bidden to escort you to London ? " 

The Captain, clearly, had escaped the spell of Stukeley's 
affability. Sir Walter was indignant. He had never 
held his kinsman in great esteem, and had never been on 
the best of terms with him in the past. Nevertheless, he 
was very far from suspecting him of what King implied. 
To convince him that he did Sir Lewis an injustice, Ralegh 
put the blunt question to his kinsman in King's presence. 



Sir Judas i8i 



" Nay," said Sir Lewis, " I am not yet bidden to escort 
you. But as Vice-Admiral of Devon I may at any moment 
be so bidden. It were wiser, I hold, not to await such an 
order. Though even if it come," he made haste to add, 
" you may still count upon my friendship. I am your 
kinsman first, and Vice-Admiral after." 

With a smile that irradiated his handsome, virile counte- 
nance, Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin's 
in token of appreciation. Captain King expressed no 
opinion save what might be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug. 

Guided now unreservedly by his cousin's counsel, Sir 
Walter set out with him upon that journey to London. 
Captain King went with them, as well as Sir Walter's body- 
servant, Cotterell, and a Frenchman named Manourie, who 
had made his first appearance in the Plymouth household 
on the previous day. Stukeley explained the fellow as a 
gifted man of medicine, whom he had sent for to cure him 
of a trivial but inconvenient ailment by which he was 
afflicted. 

Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, 
they came at last to Brentford. Sir Walter, had he 
followed his own bent, would have journeyed more slowly 
still, for in a measure, as he neared London, apprehensions 
of what might await him there grew ever darker. He spoke 
of them to King, and the blunt Captain said nothing to 
dispel them. 

" You are being led like a sheep to the shambles," he 
declared, " and you go like a sheep. You should have 
landed in France, where you have friends. Even now it 
is not too late. A ship could be procured . . ." 
• " And my honour could be sunk at sea," Sir Walter 
harshly concluded, in reproof of such counsel. 



i82 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a 
visitor, who brought him the like advice in rather different 
terms. This was De Chesne, the secretary of the French 
envoy, Le Clerc. Cordially welcomed by Ralegh, the 
Frenchman expressed his deep concern to see Sir Walter 
under arrest. 

" You conclude too hastily," laughed Sir Walter. 

" Monsieur, I do not conclude. I speak of what I am 
inform'." 

" Misinformed, sir. I am not a prisoner — at least, not 
yet," he added, with a sigh. " I travel of my own free 
will to London with my good friend and kinsman Stukeley, 
to lay the account of my voyage before the King." 

" Of your own free will ? You travel of your own free 
will ? And you are not a prisoner ? Ha ! " There was 
bitter mockery in De Chesne's short laugh. " C'est bien 
drole ./ " And he explained : " Milord the Duke of 
Buckingham, he has write in his master's name to the 
ambassador Gondomar that you are taken and held at the 
disposal of the King of Spain. Gondomar is to inform him 
whether King Philip wish that you^be sent to Spain to essay 
the justice of his Catholic Majesty, or that you suffer here. 
Meanwhile your quarters are being made ready in the Tower. 
Yet you tell me you are not prisoner ! You go of your own 
free will to London. Sir Walter, do not be deceive'. 
If you reach London, you are lost." 

Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter's last illusion. 
Yet desperately he clung to the fragments of it. The 
envoy's secretary must be at fault. 

" 'Tis yourself are at fault. Sir Walter, in that you trust 
those about you," the Frenchman insisted. 

Sir Walter stared at him, frowning. " D'ye mean 



Sir Judas 183 



Stukeley ? " quoth he, half-indignant already at the mere 
suggestion. 

" Sir Lewis, he is your kinsman." De Chesne shrugged. 
*' You should know your family better than I. But who 
is this Manourie who accompanies you ? Where is he 
come from ? What you know of him ? " 

Sir Walter confessed that he knew nothing. 

'* But I know much. He is a fellow of evil reputation. A 
spy who does not scruple to sell his own people. And I 
know that letters of commission from the Privy Council 
for your arrest were give' to him in London ten days ago. 
Whether those letters were to himself, or he was just the 
messenger to another, imports nothing. The fact is every- 
thing. The warrant against you exists, and it is in the 
hands of one or another of those that accompany you. I 
say no more. As I have toP you, you should know your 
own family. But of this be sure, they mean that you go to 
the Tower, and so to your death. And now, Sir Walter, 
if I show you the disease I also bring the remedy. I am 
command' by my master to offer you a French barque 
which is in the Thames, and a safe conduct to the Governor 
of Calais. In France you will find safety and honour, 
as your worth deserve'." 

Up sprang Sir Walter from his chair, and flung off the 
cloak of thought in which he had been mantled. 

" Impossible," he said. " Impossible ! There is my 
plighted word to return, and there are my Lords of Arundel 
and Pembroke, who are sureties for me. I cannot leave 
them to suffer by my default." 

" They will not suffer at all," De Chesne assured him. 
He was very well informed. " King James has yielded to 
Spain partly because he fears, partly because he will have 



184 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles, and will do nothing 
to trouble his good relations with King Philip. But, after 
all, you have friends, whom his Majesty also fears. If you 
escape' you would resolve all his perplexities. I do not 
believe that any obstacle will be offer' to your escape — 
else why they permit you to travel thus without any guard, 
and to retain your sword r " 

Half distracted as he was by what he had learnt, yet Sir 
Walter clung stoutly and obstinately to what he believed 
to be the only course for a man of honour. And so he 
dismissed De Chesne with messages of gratitude but 
refusal to his master, and sent for Captain King. Together 
they considered all that the secretary had stated, and King 
agreed with De Chesne's implied opinion that it was Sir 
Lewis himself who held the warrant. 

They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed 
him with it. Sir Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when 
King thereupon charged him with deceit he showed no 
anger, but only the profoundest grief. He sank into a 
chair, and took his head in his hands. 

" What could I do r What could I do ? " he cried. 
" The warrant came in the very moment we were setting 
out. At first I thought of telling you ; and then I be- 
thought me that to do so would be but to trouble your 
mind, without being able to offer you help." 

Sir Walter understood what was implied. " Did you 
not say," he asked, " that you were my kinsman first 
and Vice-Admiral of Devon after r " 

" Ay — and so I am. Though I must lose my office of 
Vice-Admiral, which has cost me six hundred pounds, if I 
suffer you to escape, I'd never hesitate if it were not for 
Manourie, who watches me as closely as he watches you. 



Sir Judas 183 



and would baulk us at the last. And that is why I have 
held my peace on the score of this warrant. What can it 
help that I should trouble you with the matter until at the 
same time I can offer you some way out ? " 

" The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit/* 
said the downright King. 

'' So they can ; and men can be hanged for slitting 
them," returned Sir Lewis, and thereafter resumed and 
elaborated his first argument, using now such forceful logic 
and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was convinced. He 
was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he stood. 
He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in 
an extremity. Manourie was the difficulty. But in his 
time he had known many of these agents who, without 
sentimental interest and purely for the sake of gold, were 
ready to play such parts ; and never yet had he known 
one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he 
desired Manourie's company in the room above stairs that 
had been set apart for Sir Walter's use. Facing him across 
the table at which both were seated, Sir Walter thrust his 
clenched fist upon the board, and, suddenly opening it, 
dazzled the Frenchman's beady eyes with the jewel spark- 
ling in his palm. 

" Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to 
betray me ? " 

Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, 
sharp-featured fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into 
Sir Walter's grimly smiling eyes, then again at the white 
diamond, from which the candlelight was striking every 
colour of the rainbow. He made a shrewd estimate of its 
price, and shook his black head. He had quite recovered 
from the shock of Sir Walter's question. 



i86 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

" Not half as much," he confessed, with impudence. 

" Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me," 
said the knight. " This jewel is to be earned." 

The agent's eyes flickered ; he passed his tongue over his 
lips. " As how ? " quoth he. 

" Briefly thus : I have but learnt of the trammel in 
which I am taken. I must have time to concert my 
measures of escape, and time is almost at an end. You are 
skilled in drugs, so my kinsman tells me. Can you so drug 
me as to deceive physicians that I am in extremis P " 

Manourie considered awhile. 

" I ... I think I could," he answered presently. 

" And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say- 
two such stones ? " 

The venal knave gasped in amazement. This was not 
generosity ; it was prodigality. He recovered again, and 
swore himself Sir Walter's. 

" About it, then." Sir Walter rolled the gem across the 
board into the clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it, 
** Keep that in earnest. The other will follow when we have 
cozened them." 

Next morning Sir Walter could not resume the journey. 
When Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken 
with vomits, and reeling like a drunkard. The valet 
ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they returned together 
they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes of 
the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, his brow 
glistening with sweat. 

Stukeley, in alarm, ordered Cotterell to get his master 
back to bed and to foment him, which was done. But on 
the next day there was no improvement, and on the third 
things were in far more serious case. The skin of his 



Sir Judas 187 



brow and arms and breast was inflamed, and covered with 
horrible purple blotches — the result of an otherwise harm- 
less ointment with which the French empiric had supplied 
him. 

When Stukeley beheld him thus disfigured, and lying 
apparently inert and but half-conscious upon his bed, he 
backed away in terror. The Vice-Admiral had seen afore- 
time the horrible manifestations of the plague, and could 
not be mistaken here. He fled from the infected air of his 
kinsman's chamber, and summoned what physicians were 
available to pronounce and prescribe. The physicians 
came — three in number — but manifested no eagerness to 
approach the patient closely. The mere sight of him was 
enough to lead them to the decision that he was afllicted 
with the plague in a singularly virulent form. 

Presently one of them plucked up courage so far as to 
feel the pulse of the apparently delirious patient. Its 
feebleness confirmed his diagnosis ; moreover the hand he 
held was cold and turgid. He was not to know that Sir 
Walter had tightly wrapped about his upper arm the ribbon 
from his poniard, and so he was entirely deceived. 

The physicians withdrew, and delivered their verdict, 
whereupon Sir Lewis at once sent word of it to the Privy 
Council. 

That afternoon the faithful Captain King, sorely 
afllicted by the news, came to visit his master, and was 
introduced to Sir Walter's chamber by Manourie, who was 
in attendance upon him. To the seaman's amazement 
he found Sir Walter sitting up in bed, surveying in a hand- 
mirror a face that was horrible beyond description with the 
complacent smile of one who takes satisfaction in his 
appearance. Yet there was no fevered madness in the 



i88 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

smiling eyes. They were alive with intelligence, amount- 
ing, indeed, to craft. 

" Ah, King ! " was the glad welcome. " The prophet 
David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall 
upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies. 
And there was Brutus, ay, and others as memorable who 
have descended to such artifice," 

Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to 
excuse an unworthiness of which he was conscious. 

" Artifice ? " quoth King, aghast " Is this artifice ? " 

" Ay — a hedge against my enemies, w^ho will be afraid 
to approach me." 

King sat himself down by his master's bed. " A better 
hedge against your enemies, Sir Walter, would have been 
the strip of sea 'twixt here and France. Would to Heaven 
you had done as I advised ere you set foot in this un- 
grateful land." 

" The omission may be repaired," said Sir Walter. 

Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to 
him, Sir Walter had been reconsidering De Chesne^s 
assurance touching my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, 
and he had come to conclude — the more readily, perhaps, 
because it was as he would have it — -that De Chesne was 
right ; that to break faith with them were no such great 
matter after all, nor one for which they would be called 
upon to suffer. And so, now, when it was all but too 
late, he yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and 
consented to save himself by flight to France. King 
was to go about the business of procuring a ship without 
loss of time. Yet there was no need of desperate haste, 
as was shown when presently orders came to Brentford 
for the disposal of the prisoner. The King, who was at 



Sir Judas 189 



Salisbury, desired that Sir Walter should be conveyed to 
his own house in London. Stukeley reported this to him, 
proclaiming it a sign of royal favour. Sir Walter was not 
deceived. He knew the reason to be fear lest he should 
infect the Tower with the plague by which he was reported 
stricken. 

So the journey was resumed, and Sir Walter was brought 
to London, and safely bestowed in his own house, but ever 
in the care of his loving friend and kinsman. Manourie's 
part being fulfilled and the aim accomplished, Sir Walter 
completed the promised payment by bestowing upon him 
the second diamond — a form of eminently portable currency 
with which the knight was well supplied. On the morrow 
Manourie was gone, dismissed as a consequence of the part 
he had played. 

It was Stukeley who told Sir Walter this — a very well 
informed and injured Stukeley, who asked to know what 
he had done to forfeit the knight's confidence that behind 
his back Sir Walter secretly concerted means of escape. 
Had his cousin ceased to trust him ? 

Sir Walter wondered. Looking into that lean, crafty face, 
he considered King's unquenchable mistrust of the man, 
bethought him of liis kinsman's general neediness, remem- 
bered past events that shed light upon his ways and 
nature, and began now at last to have a sense of the man's 
hypocrisy and double-dealing. Yet he reasoned in regard 
to him precisely as he had reasoned in regard to Manourie. 
The fellow was acquisitive, and therefore corruptible. 
If, indeed, he was so base that he had been bought to 
betray Sir Walter, then he could be bought again to betray 
those who had so bought him. 

" Nay, nay," said Sir Walter easily. " It is not lack 



igo The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

of trust in you, my good friend. But you are the holder 
of an office, and knowing as I do the upright honesty of 
your character I feared to embarrass you with things 
whose very knowledge must give you the parlous choice 
of being false to that office or false to me." 

Stukeley broke forth into imprecations. He was, he 
vowed, the most accursed and miserable of men that such 
a task as this should have fallen to his lot. And he was 
a poor man, too, he would have his cousin remember. It 
was unthinkable that he should use the knowledge he had 
gained to attempt to frustrate Sir Walter's plans of escape 
to France, And this notwithstanding that if Sir Walter 
escaped, it is certain he would lose his office of Vice- Admiral 
and the six hundred pounds he had paid for it. 

" As to that, you shall be at no loss," Sir Walter assured 
him. *^ I could not suffer it. I pledge you my honour, 
Lewis, that you shall have a thousand pounds from my 
wife on the day that I am safely landed in France or 
Holland. Meanwhile, in earnest of what is to come, here 
is a toy of value for you." And he presented Sir Lewis 
with a jewel of price, a great ruby encrusted in diamonds. 

Thus reassured that he would be immune from pecuniary 
loss, Sir Lewis was ready to throw himself whole-heartedly 
into Sir Walter's plans, and to render him all possible 
assistance. True, this assistance was a costly matter ; 
there was this person to be bought and that one ; there 
were expenses here and expenses there, incurred by Sir 
Lewis on his kinsman's behalf; and there were odd 
presents, too, which Stukeley seemed to expect and which 
Sir Walter could not deny him. He had no illusions 
now that King had been right ; that here he was deaHng 
with a rogue who would exact the uttermost farthing 



Sir Judas 191 



for his services, but he was gratified at the shrewdness with 
which he had taken his cousin's measure, and did not 
grudge the bribes by which he was to escape the scaffold. 

De Chesne came again to the house in London, to renew 
his master's offer of a ship to carry Sir Walter overseas, and 
such other assistance as Sir Walter might require. But 
by now the knight's arrangements were complete. His 
servant Cotterell had come to inform him that his own 
boatswain, now in London, was the owner of a ketch, at 
present lying at Tilbury, admirably suited for the enterprise 
and entirely at Sir Walter's disposal. It had been decided, 
then, with the agreement of Captain King, that they should 
avail themselves of this ; and accordingly Cotterell was 
bidden desire the boatswain to have the craft made 
ready for sea at once. In view of this, and anxious to 
avoid unnecessarily compromising the French envoy, Sir 
Walter gratefully declined the latter' s offer. 

And so we come at last to that July evening appointed 
for the flight. Ralegh, who, having for some time dis- 
carded the use of Manourie's ointment, had practically 
recovered his normal appearance, covering his long white 
hair under a Spanish hat, and muffling the half of his face 
in the folds of a cloak, came to Wapping Stairs — that 
ill-omened place of execution of pirates and sea-rovers — 
accompanied by Cotterell, who carried the knight's cloak- 
bag, and by Sir Lewis and Sir Lewis's son. Out of 
solicitude for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys 
could not part from him until he was safely launched 
upon his voyage. At the head of the stairs they were met 
by Captain King ; at the foot of them a boat was waiting, 
as concerted, the boatswain at the tiller. 

King greeted them with an air of obvious relief. 



102 1 lie Historical N iyjds liuicylainninil. 



Yon ir.iird |)fj|i;ij)^ vvf '.lioiild not < oin</' :;;(i(l Shikr l<y, 
with ;i :,rirrr ,il \\\r ( !.i j)l ;iiii''i .ivovvrd jrir.liiril oi liinj, 
Ym now, I hii:;l, yoiTIl do uk- ilir ju.h.r u> adjiiJL tiiat 
I liavf '.liowti iriysfll .in lion^- i ;n;in.^' 

'I'lir un* onipronii ,in;^ '*^'";: loolr^d :it liim ;ind lrov7ri'<l, 
irn .hl{in;^ \\\r word;. 

" I (io|)'- fli;il you'll <oijtini|f lo,"" \\r ;iir.wfrrd :.liffiy. 
'IlK-y wrU down llir :,lij)|)f:ry .,\»-y. (o \\\r ho.it, :ind fli<ri 
llic :,Iiorr ^didcd ,-. lowly |);r,l llirin ;r, (Jiry pir.lird off into 
tli<: St rr;irn ol \ lir rhhiri/; I idr. 

A rnornrnt lalfi, Km//, wliOi': Miipi* ioij'i cyr'.: krnt .» 
.".harp look on I, »>l>;<trv<:d .(nr>fhri hoat j)nl off 'ioiri'- two 
hiiri(h'('d yard:; \\\y\\c\ np the livr. At fir:;! hr •,;iw it 
brrafif thr Mrr;nn ;c; if j)io( <r<lin/^ toward"; f.ondon ltrid^;;f, 
thf-n abmptly swinf^ about and follow thriri. [ri'itafitiy 
fir di'w thr attrntion of Sir W;iltri \<) that j)nr:,nin;; wfi'i/y. 
" Wliat'-. tin:,?" (|(i(Hfi Sir W.dtr/ hac.hly. "Air wr 
b<:t,rayrd ? " 

Thr. watrrrrirn, lakin).^ f)i;dil .it lljr. word;;, hnn;; n<;w 
upon thrir oai';. 

" i*iit. baf k," Sir Waltrr },;,dr thrrn. "I'll nf>f f^rfray 
rny frirnd-; to no j)iirj)0-,r. V\x\ back, ;ind Irt u-; hornr 
a;^airj." 

"Nay, now," ■,;iid Slid<rhy ;M;ivrly, hiin'irlf waf<l)in)'^ 
the whrrry. " Wr .Mr morr ih;in ;i ni-it^h \()V (hrfn in 
oar.",, c.wr.w \\ thrjr pnipo/: br ,u( h ;r; yon ',n',p'-M ff>r 
wh/( li .n'-pic ion, whf:n ;dl ]■ . ■,:\\i\^ thnr: y, no /ground. On 
then ! " Ifr, .iddtr ,,f:fj hirn.ril i(, \\ir w.-ttrmirn, whippin;; 
Oul a pi;,tol, ;ind ;Mowifj;j triKulrnt in njirn and voi( r. 
** To your r>ai'. ! Row, you dog'-,, or TJi pi'jLol you where 
you fiit." 

'J'he rn'-n bent their baek'> f(;jthwit!), and the boat .';wept 



SlY jud(V. '\<p^ 



questioning thr . ;> ; o. ^^'^jrig to th'^^i; do//;. . "^;j/i 
ccrufde if they v/ere being followed, 

''But ;jr(^ '//c folio v'-: ' ' ' - -'] the imp^^xticnt Sir f.^,//j'!. 

■.'i":->'; ";;--';, ; '; ..'/■ ,' . - /cf ^ hij^hv/;*/ for ;!l] ^};r 
"> . ,' , ...'.'; ;.'. . ,■• '/'•■'/ //hcrry tii;=f ^ fJ;;rJ^'•.•; ^o ^o 

'. .' ■//;i/ fy^ j.'j p.^r'-.uj^ r^f .r; r If yfi j .-;.''■. >o fj;;]r .'jt" r/rry 
fthatiow, faith, you'ii never ;;//or/jpli -..'i ;;r./*};)r),'v J vo// 
T am unfor^'jrr,!*'- JD >.';iV!r,f/ u ir'i^:rif\ vAhijlix X v/oM '^ixWt 
ftO full of dr. '/ , : ' ; w,; , - 

Sir W;ih'-/ ;-::.' ■..;;, .'-/.., : .d 'yr. Kir,;: '::-- ^i 
<.f,rif.],i(\r rh;it, ;.<■ ;..;'; .,:;,';'^"; /^jrrj ./- -';dy. //;.,>.' v.'t 
rOWCr% ur.d'T ',• ,"•.'•/'•. ,.:;•,, o;;^ .'.ov/ ';.:'■// y':. '::,-.' '.v'--^ 
h«anily ifJ^o \'.'.; ^;: ,.-, ::•,'; '..-. v;^.--: ■:;-'■'; v.' ^^-^ ^;.'0.;dj 

'■ deepening myjii, takin;; b'^f. Jim,]'- .-.'-o ,,',^ of v-,;;^ o-.-.t 
//rjerry that bijr.;^ '■■/'■: ^ '• ''':■'■■' ■'■■■■"■ i '• '^-'^ ''-■'■ ■•''■/ 
came at Jeri^rf- ^o ^;'' '.',.' :, o-. ••'■ :;:■.■ '/: ■-..'■ '■.'. Il •> 

here findin;: V-^- v;-- ','-,;.;,,;. :^ ^s v.-. V ::;-;,.-..> \-, '.';;, 

and wearied by t/-' ' < ,^m into - d / ' j- 

declaring ^^-• /.'/ -o .-; -.o- :';^'-. ^.--v- .':/.-: '.'dore 
morning. 

Followed :; -..-,';■ ';,/,, ..o.-.^ .■.■■ ■:.' ':.'-. '/: V, :..':. \.r 
"• A.-,-: •.,: ■ , ■■ ,' •/. . -■:'■ .■ ■ '. , .'. ■' '. '/;. ■■..'■ '-'^■■- ■ ■-^.•^- 
Stud'.'v ,'• .:,;;,' ^^, •,.'.;. , -. ,' ;.'/ /. ' . ': r^iOre 

pr;^Cti' : ' ^ '/..:-y 

'''"I. ;■ . ' ; '..:'ed to them, ** A^ ?;... ..o^r 

ho-// :;h;ill /o. ;-- :,',; .' . -. ;-. ./ l;>r)d T' 

- - '• - ', '..- d;,'- .'/,-:.■'',;': -. ,•-,', dd'-; ■;-;// ^},e 



194 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

opalescent mists of dawn. A hail came to them across 
the water. 

'' Oh, 'Sdeath ! We are betrayed 1 " cried Ralegh 
bitterly, and Stukeley swore more fiercely still. Sir 
Walter turned to him. " Put ashore," he said shortly, 
*' and let us home." 

'* Ay, perhaps 'twere best. For to-night there's an end 
to the enterprise, and if I am taken in your company now, 
what shall be said to me for this active assistance in your 
escape ? " His voice'was'gloomy, his face drawn and white. 

" Could you not plead that you had but pretended to 
go with me to seize on my private papers ? " suggested 
the ingenious mind of Ralegh. 

'' I could. But shall I be believed ? Shall I ? " His 
gloom was deepening to despair. 

Ralegh was stricken almost with remorse on his cousin's 
account. His generous heart was now more concerned 
with the harm to his friends than with his own doom. 
He desired to make amends to Stukeley, but had no means 
save such as lay in the power of that currency he used. 
Having naught else to give, he must give that. He plunged 
his hand into an inner pocket, and brought forth a handful 
of jewels, which he thrust upon his kinsman. 

" Courage," he urged him. " Up now, and we may yet 
win out and home, so that all will be well with you at 
least, and you shall not suffer for your friendship to me." 

Stukeley embraced him then, protesting his love and 
desire to serve him. 

They came to landjat last, just below Greenwich bridge, 
and almost at the same moment the other wherry grounded 
immediately above them. Men sprang from her, with 
the obvious intent of cutting off their retreat. 



Sir Judas 195 



" Too late ! " said Ralegh, and sighed, entirely without 
passion now that the dice had fallen and showed that the 
game was lost. " You must act on my suggestion to 
explain your presence, Lewis." 

" Indeed, there is no other course," Sir Lewis agreed. 
'^ And you are in the same case. Captain King. You must 
confess that you joined with me but to betray Sir Walter, 
ni bear you out. Thus, each supporting the other . . ." 

" I'll roast in Hell before I brand myself a traitor," 
roared the Captain furiously. " And were you an honest 
man, Sir Lewis, you'ld understand my meaning." 

'' So, so ? " said Stukeley, in a quiet, wicked voice. 
And it was observed that his son and one or two of the 
watermen had taken their stand beside him as if in readiness 
for action. " Why, then, since you will have it so. Captain, 
I arrest you, in the King's name, on a charge of abetting 
treason." 

The Captain fell back a step, stricken a moment by 
sheer amazement. Then he groped for a pistol to do at 
last what he realized he should have done long since. 
Instantly he was overpowered. It was only then that 
Sir Walter understood the thing that had happened, and 
with understanding came fury. The old adventurer 
flung back his cloak, and snatched at his rapier to put 
it through the vitals of his dear friend and kinsman. But 
he was too late. Hands seized upon him, and he found 
himself held by the men from the wherry, confronted by 
a Mr. William Herbert, whom he knew for Stukeley's 
cousin, and he heard Mr. Herbert formally asking him 
for the surrender of his sword. 

Instantly he governed himself, repressed his fury. 
He looked coldly at his kinsman, whose face showed white 

13* 



196 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

and evil in the growing light of the early summer dawn. 
" Sir Lewis," was all he said, '* these actions will not turn 
out to your credit." 

He had no illusion left. His understanding was now a 
very full one. His dear friend and kinsman had played 
him false throughout, intending first to drain him of his 
resources before finally flinging the empty husk to the 
executioner. Manourie had been in the plot ; he had run 
with the hare and hunted with the hounds ; and Sir 
Walter's own servant Cotterell had done no less. Amongst 
them they had " cozened the great cozener " — to use 
Stukeley's own cynical expression. Even so, it was only on 
his trial that Sir Walter plumbed the full depth of Stukeley's 
baseness ; for it was only then he learnt that his kinsman 
had been armed by a warrant of immunity to assist his 
projects of escape, so that he might the more effectively 
incriminate and betray him ; and Sir Walter discovered 
also that the ship in which he had landed, and other 
matters, were to provide additional Judas' fees to this 
acquisitive betrayer. 

H to escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to 
artifices unworthy the great hero that he was, now that 
all hope was lost he conducted himself with a dignity and 
cheerfulness beyond equal. So calm and self-possessed 
and masterly was his defence from the charge of piracy 
preferred at the request of Spain, and so shrewd in its 
inflaming appeal to public opinion, that his judges w^ere 
constrained to abandon that line of prosecution, and could 
discover no way of giving his head to King James save 
by falling back upon the thirteen-year old sentence of 
death against him^ Of this they now ordered execution. 

Never a man who loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter 



Sir Judas 197 



loved it met death as blithely. He dressed himself for 
the scaffold with that elegance and richness which all his 
life he had observed. He wore a ruff band and black 
velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured 
satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches 
and ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his plumed hat 
he covered his w^hite locks with a wrought nightcap. 
This last he bestowed on his way to the scaffold upon a 
bald-headed old man who had come to take a last look of 
him, with the observation that he was more in need of it 
than himself. When he had removed it, it was observed 
that his hair was not curled as usual. This was a matter 
that had fretted his barber Peter in the prison of the 
Gatehouse at Westminster that morning. But Sir Walter 
had put him off with a laugh and a jest. 

" Let them comb it that shall have it," he had said of 
his own head. 

Having taken his leave of the friends who had flocked 
about him with the observation that he had a long journey 
before him, he called for the axe, and, when presented to 
him, ran his fingers along the edge, and smiled. 

*' Sharp medicine," quoth he, " but a sound cure for 
all diseases." 

When presently the executioner bade him turn his head 
to the East : 

'• It is no great matter which way a man's head stands, 
so that his heart lies right," he said. 

Thus passed one of England's greatest heroes, indeed 
one of the very makers of this England, and than his death 
there is no more shameful blot upon the shameful reign 
of that pusillanimous James, unclean of body and of soul, 
who sacrificed him to the King of Spain. 



198 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

A spectator of his death, who sujEered for his words — 
as men must ever suffer for the regardless utterance of 
Truth — declared that England had not such another 
head to cut oft. 

As for Stukeley, the acquisitiveness which had made 
a Judas of him was destined, by a poetic justice, ever 
desired but rarely forthcoming for knaves, soon to be his 
ruin. He was caught diminishing the gold coin of the 
realm by the operation knov.-n to-day as '* clipping,*' and 
with him w^as taken his creature Manourie, who, to save 
himself, turned chief witness against Stukeley. Sir Lewis 
was sentenced to death, but saved himself by purchasing his 
pardon at the cost of every ill-gotten shilling he possessed, 
and he lived thereafter as bankrupt of means as he was 
of honour. 

Yet before all this happened, Sir Lewis haa for his part 
in Sir Walter Ralegh's death com.e to be an object of 
execration throughout the land, and to be commonly 
known as '' Sir Judas." At WTiitehall he suffered rebuffs 
and insults that found a climax in the words addressed to 
him by the Lord Admiral, to vrhom he went to give an 
account of his office. 

'•' Base fellow, darest thou v/ho art the contempt and 
scorn of men oSer thyself in my presence : " 

For a man of honour there was but one course. Sir 
Judas was not a man of honour. He carried his grievance 
to the King. James leered at him. 

*' What wouldst thou have me do ? Wouldst thou have 
me hang him : On my soul, if I slaould hang all that 
speak ill of thee, all the trees of the country vrould not 
suffice, so great is the number." 



VI I L His Insolence of Buckingham 

George Villiers Courtship of Anne of 
Austria 



VII L His Insole7ice of Buckingham 



HE was Insolence incarnate. 
Since the day when, a mere country lad, his 
singular good looks had attracted the attention of King 
James — notoriously partial to good-looking lads — and had 
earned him the office of cup-bearer to his Majesty, the 
career of George Villiers is to be read in a series of acts 
of violent and ever-increasing arrogance, expressing the 
vanity and levity inherent in his nature. Scarcely was 
he established in the royal favour than he distinguished 
himself by striking an offending gentleman in the very 
presence of his sovereign — an act of such gross disrespect 
to royalty that his hand would have paid forfeit, as by law 
demanded, had not the maudlin king deemed him too 
lovely a fellow to be so cruelly maimed. 

Over the mind and will of King Charles his ascendancy 
became even greater than it had been over that of King 
James ; and it were easy to show that the acts of George 
Villiers' life supplied the main planks of that scaffold in 
Whitehall whereupon Charles Stuart came to lose his 
head. Charles was indeed a martyr; a martyr chiefly 
to the reckless, insolent, irresponsible vanity of this 
V^illiers, who, from a simple country squire with nothing 
but personal beauty to recommend him, had risen to be, 
as Duke of Buckingham, the first gentleman in England. 

201 



202 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

The heady wine of power had gone to his brain, and so 
addled it that, as John Chamberlain tells us, there was 
presently a touch of craziness in him — of the variety, no 
doubt, known to modern psychologists as megalomania. 
He lost the sense of proportion, and was without respect 
for anybody or anything. The Commons of England 
and the immensely dignified Court of Spain — during 
that disgraceful, pseudo-romantic adventure at Madrid — 
were alike the butts of this parvenu's unmeasured arrogance. 
But the crowning insolence of his career was that tragi- 
comedy the second act of which was played on a June 
evening in an Amiens garden on the banks of the river 
Somme. 

Three weeks ago — on the 14th May, 1625, to be precise — 
Buckingham had arrived in Paris as Ambassador Extra- 
ordinary, charged with the task of conducting to 
England the King of France's sister, Henrietta Maria, 
who three days earlier had been married by proxy to 
King Charles. 

The occasion enabled Buckingham to fling the reins on 
to the neck of his mad vanity, to indulge to the very 
fullest his crazy passion for ostentation and magnificence. 
Because the Court of France was proverbially renowned 
for splendour and luxury, Buckingham felt it due to himself 
to extinguish its brilliance by his own. On his first 
coming to the Louvre he literally blazed. He wore a suit 
of white satin velvet with a short cloak in the Spanish 
fashion, the whole powdered over with diamonds to the 
value of some ten thousand pounds,, An enormous 
diamond clasped the heron's plume in his hat ; diamonds 
flashed in the hilt of his sword ; diamonds studded his 
very spurs, which were of beaten gold ; the highest orders 



His Insolence of Buckingham 203 

of England, Spain, and France flamed on Ms breast. On 
the occasion of his second visit he wore a suit of purple 
satin, of intent so lightly sewn with pearls that as he 
moved he shook them off like raindrops, and left them to 
lie where they fell, as largesse for pages and the lesser fry of 
the Court. 

His equipages and retinue were of a kind to match his 
personal effulgence. His coaches were lined vv^ith velvet 
and covered with cloth of gold, and some seven hundred 
people made up his train. There were musicians, watermen* 
grooms of the chamber, thirty chief yeomen, a score of 
cooks, as many grooms, a dozen pages, two dozen footmen, 
six outriders, and twenty gentlemen, each with his own 
attendants, all arrayed as became the satellites of a star 
of such great magnitude. 

Buckingham succeeded in his ambition. Paris, that 
hitherto had set the fashion to the world, stared mouth- 
agape, dazzled by the splendour of this superb and scin- 
tillating ambassador. 

Another, by betraying consciousness of the figure that 
he cut, might have made himself ridiculous. But Buck- 
ingham's insolent assurance was proof against that peril. 
Supremely self-satisfied, he was conscious only that what 
he did could not be better done, and he ruffled it with an 
air of easy insouciance, as if in all this costly display there 
was nothing that was not normal. He treated, with 
princes, and even with the gloomy Louis XHI., as with 
equals ; and, becoming more and more intoxicated with 
his very obvious success, he condescended to observe 
approvingly the fresh beauty of the young Queen. 

Anne of Austria, then in her twenty-fourth year, was 
said to be one of the most beautiful women in Europe. 



204 The Historical Nights' Entertaifiment 

She was of a good height and carriage, sHght, and very 
gracefully built, of a ravishing fairness of skin and hair, 
whilst a look of wistfulness had come to invest with ao 
indefinable tenderness her splendid eyes. Her childless 
marriage to the young King of France, which had endured 
now for ten years, had hardly been successful. Gloomy, 
taciturn, easily moved to suspicion, and difficult to convince 
of error, Louis XIII. held his wife aloof, throwing up 
between himself and her a wall of coldness, almost of 
dislike. 

There is a story — and Tallemant des Reaux gives credit 
to it — that in the early days of her reign as Queen of 
France, Richelieu had fallen deeply in love with her, 
and that she, with the mischief of an irresponsible young 
girl, had encouraged him, merely to betray him to a 
ridicule which his proud spirit had never been able to 
forgive. Be that or another the reason, the fact that 
Richelieu hated her, and subjected her to his vindictive 
persecution, is beyond dispute. And it was he who by a 
hundred suggestions poisoned against her the King's mind, 
and thus kept ever open the gulf between the two. 

The eyes of that neglected young wife dilated a little, 
and admiration kindled in them, when they rested upon 
the dazzling figure of my Lord of Buckingham. He must 
have seemed to her a figure of romance, a prince out of a 
fairy-tale. 

That betraying glance he caught, and it inflamed at once 
his monstrous arrogance. To the scalps already adorning 
the belt of his vanity he would add that of the love of a 
beautiful young queen. Perhaps he was thrilled in his 
madness by the thought of the peril that would spice such 
an adventure. Into that adventure he plunged forthwith. 



His Insolence of Buckingham 205 

He wooed her during the eight days that he abode in 
Paris, flagrantly, openly, contemptuous of courtiers and 
of the very King himself. At the Louvre, at the Hotel de 
Chevreuse, at the Luxembourg, where the Queen-Mother 
held her Court, at the Hotel de Guise, and elsewhere he 
was ever at the Queen's side. 

Richelieu, whose hard pride and self-love had been 
wounded by the Duke's cavalier behaviour, who despised 
the fellow for an upstart, and may even have resented that 
so shallow a man should have been sent to treat with a 
statesman of his own calibre — for other business beside 
the marriage had brought Buckingham to Paris — suggested 
to the King that the Duke's manner in approaching the 
Queen lacked a proper deference, and the Queen's manner 
of receiving him a proper circumspection. Therefore the 
King's long face became longer, his gloomy eyes gloomier, 
as he looked on. Far, however, from acting as a deterrent, 
the royal scowl was mere incense to the vanity of Bucking- 
ham, a spur to goad him on to greater daring. 

On the 2nd of June a splendid company of some four 
thousand French nobles and ladies, besides Buckingham 
and his retinue, quitted Paris to accompany Henrietta 
Maria, now Queen of England, on the first stage of her 
journey to her new home. The King was not of the party. 
He had gone with Richelieu to Fontainebleau, leaving it 
to the Queen and the Queen-Mother to accompany his sister. 

Buckingham missed no chance upon that journey of 
pressing his attentions upon Anne of Austria. Duty 
dictated that his place should be beside the carriage of 
Henrietta Maria. But duty did not apply to His Insolence 
of Buckingham, so indifferent of whom he might slight 
or offend. And then the devil took a hand in the game. 



2o6 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

At Amiens, the Queen-Mother fell ill, so that the Court 
v/as compelled to halt there for a few days to give her 
Majesty the repose she required. Whilst Amiens was thus 
honoured by the presence of three queens at one and the 
same tim-e within its walls, the Due de Chaulnes gave an 
entertainment in the Citadel. Buckingham attended this, 
and in the dance that followed the banquet it was Buck- 
ingham who led out the Queen. 

Thereafter the royal party had returned to the Bishop's 
Palace, v/here it was lodged, and a small company went 
out to take the evening cool in the Bishop's fragrant 
gardens on the Somm.e, Buckingham ever at the Queen's 
side, Anne of Austria was attended by her Mistress of 
the Household, the beautiful, witty Marie de Rohan, 
Duchess of Chevreuse, and by her equerry, Monsieur 
de Putange. Madame de Chevreuse had for cavalier that 
handsome coxcomb. Lord Holland, who was one of 
Buckingham's creatures, between whom and herself a 
certain transient tenderness had sprung up. M. de Putange 
was accompanied by Madame de Vernet, with whom at the 
time he was over head and ears in love. Elsewhere about 
the spacious gardens other courtiers sauntered. 

Now either Madame de Chevreuse and M. de Putange 
were too deeply engrossed in their respective companions, 
or else the state of their own hearts and the tepid, lan- 
guorous eventide disposed them complacently towards the 
affair of gallantry upon which their mistress almost seemed 
to wish to be embarked. They forgot, it would seem, that 
she was a queen, and remembered sym.pathetically that she 
was a woman, and that she had for companion the most 
splendid cavalier in all the world. Thus they committed 
the unpardonable fault of lagging behind, and allowing 



His Insolence of Buckingham 207 

her to pass out of their sight round the bend of an avenue 
by the water. 

No sooner did Buckingham reaHze that he was alone 
with the Queen, that the friendly dusk and a screen of 
trees secured them from observation, than, piUng audacity 
upon audacity, he determined to accomplish here and now 
the conquest of this lovely lady who had used him so 
graciously and received his advances with such manifest 
pleasure. 

" How soft the night ! How exquisite ! " he sighed. 

" Indeed," she agreed. " And how still, but for the 
gentle murmur of the river." 

" The river ! " he cried, on a new note. " That is no 
gentle murmur. The river laughs, maHciously mocking. 
The river is evil." 

" Evil ? " quoth she. He had checked in his step, and 
they stood now side by side. 

" Evil," he repeated. " Evil and cruel. It goes to 
swell the sea that soon shall divide me from you, and it 
mocks me, rejoicing wickedly in the pain that will presently 
be mine." 

It took her aback. She laughed, a little breathlessly, 
to hide her discomposure, and scarce knew how to answer 
him, scarce knew whether she took pleasure or offence in 
his daring encroachment upon that royal aloofness in 
which she dwelt, and in which her Spanish rearing had 
taught her she must ever dwell. 

" Oh, but Monsieur I'Ambassadeur, you will be with 
us again, perhaps before so very long." 

His answer came in a swift, throbbing question, his lips so 
near her face that she could feel his breath hot upon her 
cheek. 



2o8 The Historical Nights^ Entertainment 

" Do you wish it, madame ? Do you wish it ? I implore 
you, of your pity, say but that you wish it, and I will 
come, though I tear down half a world to reach you." 

She recoiled in affright and displeasure before a wooing 
so impetuous and violently outspoken ; though the dis- 
pleasure was perhaps but a passing emotion, the result 
of early training. Yet she contrived to answer him with 
the proper icy dignity due to her position as a princess of 
Spain, now Queen of France. 

" Monsieur, you forget yourself. The Queen of France 
does not listen to such words. You are mad, I think." 

" Yes, I am mad," he flung back. " Mad with love — 
so mad that I have forgot that you are a queen and I an 
ambassador. Under the ambassador there is a man, 
under the queen a woman — our real selves, not the titles 
with which Fate seeks to dissemble our true natures. And 
with the whole strength of my true nature do I love you, 
so potently, so overwhelmingly that I will not believe you 
sensible of no response." 

Thus torrentially he delivered himself, and swept her a 
little off her feet. She was a woman, as he said ; a queen, 
it is true ; but also a neglected, coldly-used wife ; and 
no one had ever addressed her in anything approaching 
this manner, no one had ever so much as suggested that 
her existence could matter greatly, that in her woman's 
nature there was the magic power of awakening passion 
and devotion. He was so splendidly magnificent, so 
masterful and unrivalled, and he came thus to lay his 
being, as it were, in homage at her feet. It touched her a 
little, who knew so Httle of the real man. It cost her 
an effort to repulse him, and the effort was not very 
convincing. 



His Insolence of Buckingham 209 

" Hush, monsieur, for pity's sake ! You must not talk 
so to me. It ... it hurts." 

O fatal word ! She meant that it was her dignity as 
Queen he wounded, for she clung to that as to the anchor 
of salvation. But he in his egregious vanity must of course 
misunderstand. 

" Hurts ! " he cried, and the rapture in his accents should 
have warned her. " Because you resist it, because you 
fight against the commands of your true self. Anne ! " 
He seized her, and crushed her to him. " Anne ! " 

Wild terror gripped her at that almost brutal contact, 
and anger, too, her dignity surging up in violent outraged 
rebelHon. A scream, loud and piercing, broke from her, 
and rang through the still garden. It brought him to his 
senses. It was as if he had been lifted up into the air, and 
then suddenly allowed to fall. 

He sprang away from her, an incoherent exclamation on 
his lips, and when an instant later Monsieur de Putange 
came running up in alarm, his hand upon his sword, those 
two stood with the width of the avenue between them, 
Buckingham erect and defiant, the Queen breathing hard 
and trembling, a hand upon her heaving breast as if to 
repress its tumult. 

" Madame ! Madame ! " had been Putange's cry, as he 
sprang forward in alarm and self-reproach. 

He stood now almost between them, looking from one 
to the other in bewilderment. Neither spoke. 

i' You cried out,^Madame," M. de Putange reminded her, 
and Buckingham may well have wondered whether 
presently he would be receiving M. de Putange's sword 
in his vitals. He must have known that his life now 
hung upon her answer. 

14 



210 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" I called you, that was all," said the Queen, in a voice 
that she strove to render calm. " I confess that I was 
startled to find myself alone with M. FAmbassadeur. Do 
not let it occur again, M. de Putange ! " 

The equerry bowed in silence. His itching fingers fell 
away from his sword-hilt, and he breathed more freely. 
He had no illusions as to what must have happened. But 
he was relieved there were to be no complications. The 
others now coming up with them, the party thereafter kept 
together until presently Buckingham and Lord Holland 
took their leave. 

On the morrow the last stage of the escorting journey 
was accomplished. A little way beyond Amiens the Court 
took its leave of Henrietta Maria, entrusting her now to 
Buckingham and his followers, who were to convey her 
safely to Charles. 

It was a very contrite and downcast Buckingham v/ho 
came now to Anne of Austria as she sat in her coach with 
the Princesse de Conti for only companion. 

" Madame," he said, " I arn come to take my leave." 

" Fare you well, Monsieur FAmbassadeur," she said, and 
her voice was warm and gentle, as if to show him that she 
bore no malice. 

^' I am come to ask your pardon, madame," he said, 
in a low voice. 

*' Oh, monsieur — no more, I beg you." She looked down ; 
her hands were trembling, her cheeks going red and white 
by turns. 

He put his head behind the curtains of the coach, so that 
none might see him from outside, and looking at him now, 
she beheld tears in his eyes. 

" Do not misunderstand me, madame. I ask your pardon 



His Insolence of Buckingham 211 

only for having discomposed you, startled you. As for what 
I said, it were idle to ask pardon, since I could no more 
help saying it than I can help drawing breath. I obeyed 
an instinct stronger than the will to live. I gave expression 
to something that dominates my whole being, and will ever 
dominate it as long as I have life. Adieu, madame ! 
At need you know where a servant who will gladly die for 
you is to be found." He kissed the hem of her robe, dashed 
the back of his hand across his eyes, and was gone before 
she could say a word in answer. 

She sat pale, and very thoughtful, and the Princesse de 
Conti, watching her furtively, observed that her eyes were 
moist. 

" I will answer for the Queen's virtue," she stated after- 
wards, " but I cannot speak so positively for the hardness 
of her heart, since without doubt the Duke's tears affected 
her spirits." 

But it was not yet the end. As Buckingham was nearing 
Calais, he was met by a courier from Whitehall, with in- 
structions for him regarding the negotiations he had been 
empowered to carry out with France in the matter of an 
alliance against Spain — negotiations which had not 
thriven with Louis and RicheHeu, possibly because the 
ambassador was ill-chosen. The instructions came too 
late to be of use, but in tim.e to serve as a pretext for 
Buckingham's return to Amiens. There he sought an 
audience of the Queen-Mother, and delivered himself to 
her of a futile message for the King. This chimerical 
business — as Madame de Motteville shrewdly calls it — 
being accomplished, he came to the real matter which had 
prompted him to use that pretext for his return, and 
sought audience of Anne of Austria. 

14* 



212 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

It was early morning, and the Queen was not yet risen. 
But the levees at the Court of France were precisely what 
the word implies, and they were held by royalty whilst 
still abed. It was not, therefore, amazing that he should 
have been admitted to her presence. She was alone save 
for her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Lannoi, who was, we 
are told, aged, prudent and virtuous. Conceive, there- 
fore, the outraged feelings of this lady upon seeing the 
English duke precipitate himself wildly into the room, 
and on his knees at the royal bedside seize the coverlet 
and bear it to his lips. 

Whilst the young Queen looked confused and agitated, 
Madame de Lannoi became a pillar of icy dignity. 

" M. le Due," says she, " it is not customary in France 
to kneel when speaking to the Queen." 

" I care nothing for the customs of France, madame," 
he answered rudely. " I am not a Frenchman." 

"That is too obvious, monsieur," snapped the elderly, 
prudent and virtuous countess. " Nevertheless, whilst 
in France perhaps monsieur will perceive the convenience 
of conforming to French customs. Let me call for a 
chair for Monsieur le Due." 

" I do not want a chair, madame." 

The countess cast her eyes to Heaven, as if to say, " I 
suppose one cannot expect anything else in a foreigner," 
and let him kneel as he insisted, placing herself, however, 
protectingly at the Queen's pillow. 

Nevertheless, entirely unabashed, heeding Madame de 
Lannoi's presence no more than if she had been part of 
the room's furniture, the Duke delivered himself freely of 
what was in his mind. He had been obliged to return to 
Amiens on a matter of State. It was unthinkable that 



His Insolence of Buckingham 213 

he should be so near to her Majesty and not hasten to 
cast himself at her feet ; and whilst gladdening the eyes 
of his body with the sight of her matchless perfection, the 
image of which was ever before the eyes of his soul, allow 
himself the only felicity life now held for him— that of 
protesting himself her utter slave. This, and much more 
of the kind, did he pour out, what time the Queen, embar- 
rassed and annoyed beyond utterance, could only stare at 
him in silence. 

Apart from the matchless impudence of it, it was also 
of a rashness beyond pardon. Unless Madame de Lannoi 
were the most circumspect of women, here was a fine 
tale for Court gossips, and for the King's ears, a tale that 
must hopelessly compromise the Queen. For that, Buck- 
ingham, in his self-sufficiency and arrogance, appears to 
have cared nothing. One suspects that it would have 
pleased his vanity to have his name linked with the 
Queen's by the lips of scandal. 

She found her tongue at last. 

" Monsieur le Due," she said in her confusion , ** it was 
not necessary, it was not worth while, to have asked 
audience of me for this. You have leave to go." 

He looked up in doubt, and saw only confusion ; attri- 
buted it perhaps to the presence of that third party to 
which himself he had been so indifferent. He kissed the 
coverlet again, stumbled to his feet, and reached the door. 
Thence he sent her a flaming glance of his bold eyes, and 
hand on heart — 

" Adieu, madame ! " said he in tragic tones, and so 
departed. 

Madame de Lannoi was discreet, and related at the 
time nothing of what had passed at that interview. But 



214 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

that the interview itself had taken place under such con- 
ditions was enough to set the tongue of gossip wagging. 
An echo of it reached the King, together with the story 
of that other business in the garden, and he was glad 
to know that the Duke of Buckingham was back in 
London. Richelieu, to vent his own malice against the 
Queen, sought to feed the King's suspicions. 

" Why did she cry out, sire ? " he will have asked. 
" What did M. de Buckingham do to make her cry 
out ? '^ 

" I don't know. But whatever it was, she was no party 
to it since she did cry out." 

Richelieu did not pursue the matter just then. But 
neither did he abandon it. He had his agents in London 
and elsewhere, and he desired of them a close report 
upon the Duke of Buckingham's movements, and the 
fullest particulars of his private life. 

Meanwhile, Buckingham had left behind him in France 
two faithful agents of his own, with instructions to keep 
his memory green with the Queen. For he intended to 
return upon one pretext or another before very long, and 
complete the conquest. Those agents of his were Lord 
Holland and the artist Balthazar Gerbier. It is to be 
presumed that they served the Duke's interests well, and 
it is no less to be presumed from that which followed 
that they found her Majesty willing enough to hear news 
of that amazingly romantic fellow who had flashed across 
the path of her grey life, touching it for a moment with 
his own flaming radiance. In her loneliness she came 
to think of him with tenderness and pity, in which pity for 
herself and her dull lot was also blent. He was away, 
overseas ; she might never see him again ; therefore 



His Insolence of Buckingham 215 

there could be little harm in indulging the romantic tender- 
ness he had inspired. 

So one day, many months after his departure, she begged 
Gerbier — as La Rochefoucauld tells us — to journey to 
London and bear the Duke a trifling memento of her — a 
set of diamond studs. That love-token — for it amounted 
to no less — Gerbier conveyed to England, and delivered 
to the Duke. 

Buckingham's head was so completely turned by the 
event, and his desire to see Anne of Austria again became 
thereupon so overmastering, that he at once communi- 
cated to France that he was coming over as the ambas- 
sador of the King of England to treat of certain matters 
connected with Spain, But Richelieu had heard from 
the French ambassador in London that portraits of the 
Queen of France were excessively abundant at York 
House, the Duke's residence, and he had considered it 
his duty to inform the King. Louis was angry, but not 
with the Queen. To have believed her guilty of any indis- 
cretion would have hurt his gloomy pride too deeply. AH 
that he believed was that this was merely an expression 
of Buckingham's fanfaronading, thrasonical disposition, 
a form of vain, empty boasting peculiar to megalomaniacs. 

As a consequence, the King of England was informed 
that the Duke of Buckingham, for reasons well known to 
himself, would not be agreeable as Charles's ambassador 
to his Most Christian Majesty. Upon learning this, the 
vainglorious Buckingham was loud in proclaiming the 
reason (" well known to himself ") and in protesting that 
he would go to France to see the Queen with the French 
King's consent or without it. This was duly reported to 
Richelieu, and by Richelieu to King Louis. But his Most 



2i6 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Christian Majesty merely sneered, accounted it more 
empty boasting on the part of the parvenu, and dismissed 
it from his mind. 

Richelieu found this attitude singularly exasperating 
in a King who was temperamentally suspicious. It so 
piqued and annoyed him, that when considered in addition 
to his undying rancour against Anne of Austria, it is easily 
believed he spared no pains to obtain something in the 
nature of a proof that the Queen was not as innocent as 
Louis insisted upon believing. 

Now it happened that one of his London agents in- 
formed him, among other matters connected with the 
Duke's private life, that he had a bitter and secret enemy 
in the Countess of Carlisle, between whom and himself 
there had been a passage of some tenderness too abruptly 
ended by the Duke. Richelieu, acting upon this informa- 
tion, contrived to enter into correspondence with Lady 
Carlisle, and in the course of this correspondence lie 
managed her so craftily — says La Rochefoucauld — that 
very soon she was, whilst hardly realizing it, his Eminence's 
most valuable spy near Buckingham. Richelieu informed 
her that he was mainly concerned with information that 
would throw light upon the real relations of Buckingham 
and the Queen of France, and he persuaded her that nothing 
was too insignificant to be communicated. Her resent- 
ment of the treatment she had received from Buckingham, 
a resentment the more bitter for being stifled — since for 
her reputation's sake she dared not have given it expres- 
sion — made her a very ready instrument in Richelieu's 
hands, and there was no scrap of gossip she did not care- 
fully gather up and dispatch to him. But all was naught 
until one day at last she was able to tell him something 



His Insolence of Buckingham 217 

that set his pulses beating more quickly than their 
habit. 

She had it upon the best authority that a set of diamond 
studs constantly worn of late by the Duke was a love- 
token from the Queen of France sent over to Buckingham 
by a messenger of her own. Here, indeed, was news. 
Here was a v/eapon by which the Queen might be destroyed. 
Richelieu considered. If he could but obtain possession 
of the studs, the rest would be easy. There would be an 
end — and such an end !— to the King's obstinate, indolent 
faith in his wife's indifference to that boastful, flamboyant 
English upstart. Richelieu held his peace for the time 
being, and wrote to the Countess. 

Some little time thereafter there was a sumptuous ball 
given at York House, graced by the presence of King 
Charles and his young French Queen. Lady Carlisle was 
present, and in the course of the evening Buckingham 
danced with her. She was a very beautiful, accom- 
plished and ready-witted woman, and to-night his Grace 
found her charms so alluring that he was almost disposed 
to blame himself for having perhaps treated her too lightly. 
Yet she seemed at pains to show him that it was his to 
take up again the affair at the point at which it had been 
dropped. She was gay, arch, provoking and irresistible. 
So irresistible that presently, yielding to the lure of her, 
the Duke slipped away from his guests with the lady on 
his arm, and they found themselves at the foot of the 
garden in the shadow of the water-gate that Inigo Jones 
had just completed for him. My lady languished at his 
side, permitted him to encircle her with a protecting arm, 
and for a moment lay heavily against him. He caught 
her violently to him, and now her ladyship, hitherto so yield- 



2i8 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Ing, with, true feminine contrariness set herself to resist 
him. A scuffle ensued between them. She broke from 
him at last, and sped swift as a doe across the lawn towards 
the lights of the great house, his Grace in pursuit between 
vexation and amusement. 

But he did not overtake her, and it was with a sense of 
having been fooled that he rejoined his guests. His 
questing eyes could discern her now^here. Presently he 
made inquiries, to be told that she had desired her carriage 
to be called, and had left York House immediately upon 
coming in from the garden. 

He concluded that she was gone off in a pet. It was 
very odd. It was, in fact, most flagrantly contradictory 
that she should have taken offence at that which she had 
so obviously invited. But then she always had been a 
perverse and provoking jade. With that reflection he put 
her from his mind. 

But anon, when his guests had departed, and the lights 
in the great house were extinguished, Buckingham thought 
of the incident again. Cogitating it, he sat in his room, 
his fingers combing his fine, pointed, auburn beard. At last^ 
with a shrug and a half-laugh, he rose to undress for bed. 
And then a cry escaped him, and brought in his valet from 
an adjoining room. The riband of diamond studs was gone. 

Reckless and indifferent as he was, a sense of evil took 
him in the moment of his discovery of that loss, so that 
he stood there pale, staring, and moist of brow. It was 
no ordinary theft. There were upon his person a dozen 
ornaments of greater value, any one of which could have 
been more easily detached. This was the work of some 
French agent. He had made no secret of whence those 
studs had come to him. 



His Insolence of Buckingham 219 

There his thoughts checked on a sudden. As in a flash 
of revelation, he saw the meaning of Lady Carlisle's oddly- 
contradictory behaviour. The jade had fooled him. It 
was she who had stolen the riband. He sat down again, 
his head in his hands, and swiftly, link by link, he pieced 
together a complete chain. 

Almost as swiftly he decided upon the course of action 
which he must adopt so as to protect the Queen of France's 
honour. He was virtually the ruler of England, master 
in these islands of an almost boundless power. That 
power he would exert to the full this very night to thwart 
those enemies of his own and of the Queen's, who worked 
so subtly in concert. Many would be wronged, much 
harm would be done, the liberties of some thousands of 
freeborn Englishmen would be trampled underfoot. What 
did it matter ? It was necessary that his Grace of 
Buckingham should cover up an indiscretion. 

" Set ink and paper yonder," he bade his gaping valet. 
" Then go call M. Gerbier. Rouse Lacy and Thorn, and 
send them to me at once, and leave word that I shall 
require a score of couriers to be in the saddle and ready 
to set out in half an hour." 

Bewildered, the valet went off upon his errand. The 
Duke sat down to write. And next morning English mer- 
chants learnt that the ports of England were closed by 
the King's express command — delivered by his minister, 
the Duke of Buckingham — that measures were being 
taken — were already taken in all southern ports — so that 
no vessel of any kind should leave the island until the 
King's further pleasure were made known. Startled, the 
people wondered was this enactment the forerunner of 
war. Had they known the truth, they might have been 



220 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

more startled still, though in a different manner. As 
swiftly as couriers could travel — and certainly well ahead 
of any messenger seeking escape overseas — did this 
blockade spread, until the gates of England were tight- 
locked against the outgoing of those diamond studs which 
meant the honour of the Queen of France. 

And meanwhile a diamond-cutter was replacing the 
purloined stones by others, matching them so closely that 
no man should be able to say which were the originals and 
which the copies. Buckingham and Gerbier between 
them guided the work. Soon it was accomplished, and a 
vessel slipped down the Thames, allowed to pass by those 
who kept close watch to enforce the royal decree, and 
made sail for Calais, which was beginning to manifest 
surprise at this entire cessation of traffic from England. 
From that vessel landed Gerbier, and rode straight to 
Paris, carrying the Queen of France the duplicate 
studs, which were to replace those which she had sent 
to Buckingham. 

Twenty-four hours later the ports of England were 
unsealed, and commerce was free and unhampered once 
more. But it was twenty-four hours too late for Richelieu 
and his agent, the Countess of Carlisle. His Eminence 
deplored a fine chance lost through the excessive power 
that was wielded in England by the parvenu. 

Yet that is not quite the end of the story. Buckingham's 
inflamed and reckless mind would stop at nothing nov/ to 
achieve the object of his desires — to go to France and see 
the Queen. Since the country was closed to him, he would 
force a way into it, the red way of war. Blood should 
flow, ruin and misery desolate the land, but in the end 



His Insolence of Buckingham 221 

he would go to Paris to negotiate a peace, and that should 
be his opportunity. Other reasons there may have been» 
but none so dominant, none that could not have been 
removed by negotiation. The pretexted casus belli was 
the matter of the Protestants of La Rochelle, who were 
in rebellion against their king. 

To their aid sailed Buckingham with an English expedi- 
tion. Disaster and defeat awaited it. Its shattered 
remnant crept back in disgrace to England, and the Duke 
found himself more detested by the people than he had 
been already — which is saying much. He went off to seek 
comfort at the hands of the two persons who really loved 
him — his doting King and his splendid wife. 

But the defeat had neither lessened his resolve nor 
chastened his insolence. He prepared a second expedi- 
tion in the very teeth of a long-suffering nation's hostility, 
indifferent to the mutinies and mutterings about him. 
VVliat signified to him the will of a nation ? He desired 
to win to the woman \v'hom he loved, and to accomplish 
that he nothing recked that he should set Europe in a 
blaze, nothing recked what blood should be poured out, 
what treasure dissipated. 

Hatred of him by now was so widespread and vocal, 
that his friends, fearing that soon it would pass from 
words to deeds, urged him to take precautions, advised 
the wearing of a shirt of mail for greater safety. 

But he laughed sneeringly, ever arrogant and scornful. 

" It needs not. There are no Roman spirits left," was 
his contemptuous answer. 

He was mistaken. One morning after breakfast, as 
he was leaving the house in the High Street, Portsmouth, 
where he lodged v/hilst superintending the final prepara- 



222 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

tions for that unpopular expedition, John Felton, a self- 
appointed instrument of national vengeance, drove a knife 
to the hilt into the Duke's breast. 

" May the Lord have mercy on your soul ! " was the 
pious exclamation with which the slayer struck home. 
And, in all the circumstances, there seems to have been 
occasion for the prayer. 



IX, The Path of Exile 
The Fall of Lord Clarendon 



IX, The Path of Exile 

^IGHT-WRAPPED in his cloak against the icy 

1 whips of the black winter's night, a portly gentle- 
man, well advanced in years, picked his way carefully 
down the wet, slippery ste ^ of the jetty by the light of 
a lanthorn, whose rays gleamed lividly on crushed brown 
seaweed and trailing green sea slime. Leaning heavily 
upon the arm which a sailor held out to his assistance, he 
stepped into the waiting boat that rose and fell on the 
heaving black waters. A boathook scraped against the 
stones, and the frail craft was pushed off. 

The oars dipped, and the boat slipped away through the 
darkness, steering a course for the two great poop lanterns 
that were swinging rhythmically high up against the black 
background of the night. The elderly gentleman, huddled 
now in the stern-sheets, looked behind him— to look his last 
upon the England he had loved and served and ruled. 
The lanthorn, shedding its wheel of yellow light upon the 
jetty steps, was all of it that he could now see. 

He sighed, and settled down again to face the poop 
lights, dancing there above the invisible hull of the ship 
that was to carry Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, 
lately Lord Chancellor of England, into exile. 

Aft a dying man looks down the foreshortened vista of 

225 15 



226 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

his active life, so may Edward Hyde — whose career had 
reached a finality but one degree removed from the 
finality of death — ^have reviewed in that moment those 
thirty years of sincere endeavour and high achievement 
since he had been a law student in the Temple when 
Charles I. was King. 

That King he had served faithfully, so faithfully that 
when the desperate fortunes of the Royalist party made 
it necessary to place the Prince of Wales beyond the 
reach of Cromwell, it was in Sir Edward Hyde's care that 
the boy was sent upon his travels. The present was not 
to be Hyde's first experience of exile. He had known it, 
and of a bitter sort, in those impecunious days when the 
Second Charles, whose steps he guided, was a needy, 
homeless outcast. A man less staunch and loyal might 
have thrown over so profitless a service. He had talents 
that would have commanded a price in the Roundhead 
market. Yet staunchly adhering to the Stuart fortunes, 
labouring ceaselessly and shrewdly in the Stuart interest, 
employing his great abihty and statecraft, he achieved at 
long length the restoration of the Stuarts to the Throne 
of England. And for all those loyal, self-denying labours 
in exile on the Stuart behalf, all the reward he had at the 
time was that James Stuart, Duke of York, debauched 
his daughter. 

Nor did Hyde's labours cease when he had made possible 
the Restoration ; it was Hyde who, when that Restoration 
was accomplished, took in hand and carried out the diffi- 
cult task of welding together the old and the new condi- 
tions of poHtical affairs. And it was Hyde who was 
the scapegoat when things did not run the course that 
Englishmen desired. As the head of the administration 



The Path of Exile 227 

he was held responsible even for those acts which he had 
strongly but vainly reprobated in Council. It was Hyde 
who was blamed when Charles sold Dunkirk to the French, 
and spent the money in harlotry ; it was Hyde who was 
blamed because the Queen was childless. 

The reason for this last lay in the fact that the wrong 
done to Hyde's daughter Anne had now been righted by 
marriage with the Duke of York. Now the Duke of York 
was the heir-apparent, and the people, ever ready to attach 
most credit to that which is most incredible and fantastic, 
believed that to ensure the succession of his own graai- 
children Hyde had deliberately provided Charles with a 
barren wife. 

When the Dutch, sailing up the Thames, had burnt the 
ships of war at Chatham, and Londoners heard the thunder 
of enemy guns, Hyde was openly denounced as a traitor 
by a people stricken with terror and seeking a victim in the 
blind, unreasoning way of public feeling. They broke his 
vidndows, ravaged his garden, and erected a gibbet before 
the gates of his superb mansion on the north side of 
Piccadilly. 

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and Lord Chancellor 
of England, commanded the love of his intimates, but did 
not possess those qualities of cheap glitter that make for 
popularity with the masses. Nor did he court popularity 
elsewhere. Because he was austere in his morals, grave 
and sober in his conduct, he was hated by those who made 
up the debauched court of his prince. Because he was 
deeply religious in his principles, the Puritans mistrusted 
him for a bigot. Because he was autocratic in his policy, 
he was detested by the Commons, the day of autocracy 
being done. 

15* 



228 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Yet might he have weathered the general hostility had 
Charles been half as loyal to him as he had ever been loyal 
to Charles. For a time, it is true, the King stood his 
friend, and might so have continued to the end had not 
the women become mixed up in the business. As Evelyn, 
the diarist, puts it, this great man's fall was the work of 
" the buffoones and ladys of pleasure." 

It really is a very tangled story — this inner history of 
the fall of Clarendon, with which the school-books are not 
concerned. In a sense, it is also the story of the King's 
marriage and of Catherine of Braganza, his unfortunate 
little ugly Queen, who must have suffered as much as any 
woman wedded to a sultan in any country where the 
seraglio is not a natural and proper institution. 

If Clarendon could not be said to have brought about 
the marriage, at least he had given it his suffrages when 
proposed by Portugal, which was anxious to establish an 
alliance with England as some protection against the pre- 
datory designs of Spain. He had been influenced by the 
dowry offered — five hundred thousand pounds in money, 
Tangier, which would give England a commanding position 
on the Mediterranean, and the Island of Bombay. With- 
out yet foreseeing that the possession of Bombay, and the 
freedom to trade in the East Indies- — which Portugal 
had hitherto kept jealously to herself — were to enable 
England to build up her great Indian Empire, yet the 
commercial advantages alone were obvious enough to 
make the match desirable. 

Catherine of Braganza sailed for England, and on the 
19th of May, 1662, Charles, attended by a splendid follow- 
ing, went to meet his bride at Portsmouth. He was 
himself a very personable man, tall — he stood a full six 



The Path of Exile 229 

feet high — lean and elegantly vigorous. The ugliness of 
his drawn, harsh-featured face was mitigated by the glory 
of full, low-lidded, dark eyes, and his smile could be 
irresistibly captivating. He was as graceful in manner 
as in person, felicitous of speech, and of an indolent good 
temper that found expression in a charming urbanity. 

Good temper and urbanity alike suffered rudely when he 
beheld the wife they brought him. Catherine, who was 
in her twenty-fifth year, was of an absurdly low stature, 
so long in the body and short in the legs that, dressed as 
she was in an outlandish, full-skirted farthingale, she had 
the appearance of being on her knees when she stood 
before him. Her complexion was sallow, and though her 
eyes, like his own, were fine, they were not fine enough to 
redeem the dull plainness of her face. Her black hair 
was grotesquely dressed, with a long fore-top and two 
great ribbon bows standing out, one on each side of her 
head, like a pair of miniature wings. 

It is little wonder that the Merry Monarch, the fastidious 
voluptuary, with his nice discernment in women, should 
have checked in his long stride, and halted a moment in 
consternation. 

" Lord ! " was his wry comment to Etheredge, who 
was beside him. " They^^e brought me a bat, not a 
woman." 

But if she lacked beauty, she was well dowered, and 
Charles was in desperate need of money. 

" I suppose," he told Clarendon anon, " I must swallow 
this black draught to gtt the jam that goes with it." 

The Chancellor's grave eyes considered him almost 
sternly what time he coldly recited the advantages of 
this marriage. If he did not presume to rebuke the 



230 The Historical Nights' Enteftainmeiii 

ribaldry of his master, neither would he condescend to 
smile at it. He was too honest ever to be a sycophant. 

Catherine was immediately attended — in the words of 
Grammont — by six frights who called themselves maids- 
of-honour, and a governess who was a monster. With 
this retinue she repaired to Hampton Court, where the 
honeymoon was spent, and where for a brief season the 
poor woman — entirely enamoured of the graceful, long- 
legged rake she had married — lived in a fool's paradise. 

Disillusion was to follow soon enough. She might be, 
by the grace of her dowry. Queen of England, but she was 
soon to discover that to King Charles she was no more 
than a wife de jure. With wives de jacto Charles would 
people his seraglio as fancy moved him ; and the present 
wife de Jacto, the mistress of his heart, the first lady of his 
harem, was that beautiful termagant, Barbara Villiers, 
wife of the accommodating Roger Palmer, Earl of Castle- 
maine. 

There was no lack — there never is in such cases— of 
those who out of concern and love for the happily deluded 
wife lifted the veil for her, and made her aware of the 
facts of his Majesty's association with my Lady Castle- 
maine — an association dating back to the time when he 
was still a homeless wanderer. The knowledge would 
appear to have troubled the poor soul profoundly ; but the 
climax of her distress was reached when, on her coming to 
Whitehall, she found at the head of the list of ladies-in- 
waiting assigned to her the name of my Lady Castlem^ine. 
The forlorn little woman's pride rose up before this outrage. 
She struck out that offending name, and gave orders that 
the favourite was not to be admitted to her presence. 

But she reckoned without Charles. For all his urbane, 



The Path of Exile 231 

good-tempered, debonair ways, there was an ugly cynical 
streak in his nature, manifested now in the manner in 
which he dealt with this situation. Himself he led his 
boldly handsome favourite by the hand into his wife's 
presence, before the whole Court assembled, and himself 
presented her to Catherine, what time that Court, disso- 
lute and profligate as it was, looked on in amazement at 
so outrageous a slight to the dignity of a queen. 

What followed may well have exceeded all expecta- 
tions. Catherine stiffened as if the blow dealt her had 
been physical. Gradually her face paled until it was grey 
and drawn ; tears of outraged pride and mortification 
flooded her eyes. And then, as if something snapped 
within her brain under this stress of bitter emotion, blood 
gushed from her nostrils, and she sank back in a swoon 
into the arms of her Portuguese ladies. 

Confusion followed, and under cover of it Charles and 
his light of love withdrew, realizing that if he lingered 
not all his easy skill in handling delicate situations could 
avail him to save his royal dignity. 

Naturally the experiment was not to be repeated. 
But since it was his wish that the Countess of Castlemaine 
should be established as one of the Queen's ladies — or, 
rather, since it was her ladyship's wish, and since Charles 
was as wax in her ladyship's hands — it became necessary 
to have the Queen instructed in what was, in her husband's 
view, fitting. For this task he selected Clarendon. But 
the Chancellor, who had so long and loyally played 
Mentor to Charles's Telemachus, sought now to guide him 
in matters moral as he had hitherto guided him in matters 
political. 

Clarendon declined the office of mediator, and even 



232 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

expostulated with Charles upon the unseemliness of the 
course upon which his Majesty was bent. 

" Surely, sire, it is for her Majesty to say who shall 
and who shall not be the ladies of her bedchamber. And 
I nothing marvel at her decision in this instance." 

" Yet I tell you, my lord, that it is a decision that shall 
be revoked." 

" By whom, sire ? " the Chancellor asked him gravely. 

" By her Majesty, of course." 

** Under coercion, of which you ask me to be the instru- 
ment," said Clarendon, in the tutorly manner he had 
used with the King from the latter's boyhood. " Your- 
self, sire, at a time when your own wishes did not warp 
your judgment, have condemned the very thing that 
now you are urging. Yourself, sire, hotly blamed your 
cousin. King Louis, for thrusting Mademoiselle de Valliere 
upon his queen. You will not have forgotten the things 
you said then of King Louis," 

Charles remembered those unflattering criticisms which 
he was now invited to apply to his own case. He bit his 
lip, admitting himself in check. 

But anon — no doubt in obedience to the overbearing 
suasion of my Lady Castlemaine — he returned to the 
attack, and sent the Chancellor his orders in a letter 
demanding unquestioning obedience. 

" Use your best endeavours," wrote Charles, " to facili- 
tate what I am sure my honour is so much concerned in. 
And whosoever I find to be my Lady Castlemaine's enemy 
in this matter, I do promise upon my word to be his 
enemy so long as I live." 

My Lord Clarendon had few illusions on the score of 
mankind. He knew his world from froth to dregs — 



The Path of Exile 233 



having studied it under a variety of conditions. Yet that 
letter from his King was a bitter draught. All that Charles 
possessed and was he owed to Clarendon. Yet in such 
a contest as this, Charles did not hesitate to pen that 
bitter, threatening line : " Whosoever I find to be my Lady 
Castlemaine's enemy m this matter, I do promise upon 
my word to be his enemy so long as I live." 

All that Clarendon had done in the past was to count 
for nothing unless he also did the unworthy thing that 
Charles now demanded. All that he had accomplished ia 
the service of his King was to be swept into oblivion by 
the breath of a spiteful wanton. 

Clarendon swallowed the draught and sought the 
Qaeen, upon that odious embassy with whose ends h,e was 
30 entirely out of sympathy. He used arguments whose 
hollowness was not more obvious to the Queen than to 
himself. 

That industrious and entertaining chronicler of trifles, 
Mr. Pepys, tells us, scandaHzed, in his diary that on the 
following day the talk of the Court was all upon a midnight 
scene between the royal couple in the privacy of their 
ov/n apartments, so stormy that the sounds of it were 
plain'y to be heard in the neighbouring chambers. 

You conceive the poor little woman, smarting under the 
insult of Charles's proposal by the mouth of Clarendon, 
assailing her royal husband, and fiercely upbraiding him 
with his lack not merely of affection but even of the 
respect that was her absolute due. And Charles, his 
purpose set, urged to it by the handsome termagant whom 
he dared not refuse, stirred out of his indolent good-nature, 
turning upon her, storming back, and finally threatening 
xier with the greater disgrace of seeing herself packed home 



234 2"/^^ Historical Nights' Entertainment 

to Portugal, unless she would submit to the lesser disgrace 
he thrust upon her here. 

Whether by these or by other arguments he made his 
will prevail, prevail it did. Catherine of Braganza 
swallowed her pride and submitted. And a very complete 
submission it was. Lady Castlemaine was not only 
installed as a Lady of the Bedchamber, but very soon we 
find the Queen treating her with a friendliness that pro- 
voked comment and amazement. 

The favourite's triumph was complete, and marked by 
an increasing insolence, most marked in her demeanour 
towards the Chancellor, of whose views on the subject, 
as expressed to the King, she was aware. Consequently 
she hated him with all the spiteful bitterness that is in- 
separable from the nature of such women. And she 
hated him the more because, wrapped in his cold con- 
tempt, he moved in utter unconcern of her hostihty. In 
this hatred she certainly did not lack for allies, members 
of that licentious court whose hostility towards the 
austere Chancellor was begotten of his own scorn of them. 
Among them they worked to pull him down. 

The attempt to undermine his influence with the King 
proving vain — for Charles was as well aware of its inspira- 
tion as of the Chancellor's value to him — that crew of 
rakes went laboriously and insidiously to work upon the 
public mind, v/hich is to say the public ignorance— most 
fruitful soil for scandal against the great. Who shall say 
how far my lady and the Court were responsible for the 
lampoon affixed one day to my Lord Clarendon's gatepost : 

^hreg sights to be seen : 

Dunkirk, Tangier, and a barren queen. 



The Path of Exile 235 

Her ladyship might well have considered the unpopu- 
larity of the Chancellor as the crown of her triumph, had 
this triumph been as stable as she could have wished. 
But, Charles being what he was, it follows that her lady- 
ship had frequent, if transient, anxious jealousies to mar 
the perfection of her existence, to remind her how insecure 
is the tenure of positions such as hers, ever at the 
mercy of the very caprice to which they owe their 
existence. 

And then, at long length, there came a day of horrid 
dread for her, a day when she found herself bereft of her 
influence with her royal lover, when pleadings and railings 
failed alike to sway him. In part she owed it to an indis- 
cretion of her own, but in far greater measure to a child 
of sixteen, of a golden-headed, fresh, youthful loveliness, 
and a nature that still found pleasure in dolls and kindred 
childish things, yet of a quick and lively wit, and a clear, 
intelligent mind, untroubled either by the assiduity of the 
royal attentions or the fact that sh^ vvas become the toast 
of the day. 

This was Miss Frances Stewart, the daughter of Lord 
Blantyre, newly come to Court as a Lady-in-Waiting to 
her Majesty. How profound an impression her beauty 
made upon the admittedly impressionable old Pepys you 
may study in his diary. He had a glimpse of her one day 
riding in the Park with the King, and a troop of ladies, 
among whom my Lady Castlemaine, looking, as he tells 
us, " mighty out of humour." There was a moment when 
Miss Stewart came very near to becoming Queen of 
England, and although she never reached that eminence, 
yet her effigy not only found its way into the coinage, 
but abides there to this day (more perdurable than that 



236 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

of any actual queen) in the figure of Britannia, for which 
she was the model. 

Charles wooed her openly. It was never his way to 
study appearances in these matters. He was so assiduous 
that it became customary in that winter of 1666 for those 
seeking the King at Whitehall to inquire whether he were 
above or below — " below " meaning Miss Stewart's apart- 
ments on the ground-floor of the palace, in which apart- 
ments his Majesty was a constant visitor. And since 
where the King goes the Court follows, and where the 
King smiles there the Court fawns, it resulted that this 
child now found herself queening it over a court that 
flocked to her apartments. Gallants and ladies came 
there to flirt and to gossip, to gamble and to pay homage. 

About a great table in her splendid salon, a company 
of rustling, iridescent fops in satin and heavy periwigs, 
and of ladies with curled head-dresses and bare shoulders, 
played at basset one night in January. Conversation 
rippled, breaking here and there into laughter, white, 
jew^elled hands reached out for cards, or for a share of the 
heaps of gold that swept this way and that with the 
varying fortunes of the game. 

My Lady Castlemaine, seated between Etheredge and 
Rochester, played in silence, with lips tight-set and 
brooding eyes. She had lost, it is true, some ^^1,500 
that night ; yet, a prodigal gamester, and one who came 
easily by money, she had been known to lose ten times 
that sum and yet preserve her smile. The source of her 
ill-humour was not the game. She played recklessly, 
her attention wandering ; those handsome, brooding 
eyes of hers were intent upon watching what went on at 
the other end of the long room. There, at a smaller table, 



The Path of Exile 237 

sat Miss Stewart, half a dozen gallants hovering near her, 
engaged upon a game of cards of a vastly different sort. 
Miss Stewart did not gamble. The only purpose she could 
find for cards was to build castles ; and here she was 
building one with the assistance of her gallants, and under 
the superintendence of his Grace of Buckingham, who 
was as skilled in this as in other equally unstable forms 
of architecture. 

Apart, over by the fire, in a great chair of gilt leather, 
lounged the King, languidly observing this smaller party, 
a faint, indolent smile on his swarthy, saturnine counte- 
nance. Absently, with one hand he stroked a little 
spaniel that was curled in his lap. A black boy in a gor- 
geous, plumed turban and a long, crimson surcoat 
arabesqued in gold — there were three or four such atten- 
dants about the room — proffered him a cup of posset on 
a golden salver. 

The King rose, thrust aside the little blackamoor, and 
with his spaniel under his arm, sauntered across to Miss 
Stewart's table. Soon he found himself alone with her 
—the others having removed themselves on his approach, 
as jackals fall back before the coming of the lion. The 
last to go, and with signs of obvious reluctance, was his 
Grace of Richmond, a delicately-built, uncomely, but 
very glittering gentleman. 

Charles faced her across the table, the tall house of 
cards standing between them. 

Miss invited his Majesty's admiration for my Lord of 
Buckingham's architecture. Pouf ! His Majesty blew, 
and the edifice rustled down to a mere heap of cards again. 

" Symbol of kingly power," said Miss, pertly. " You 
demolish better than you build, sire." 



238 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" Oddsfish ! If you challenge me, it were easy to prore 
you wrong," quoth he. 

" Pray do. The cards are here." 

" Cards ! Pooh 1 Card castles are well enough for 
Buckingham. But such is not the castle I'll build you 
if you command me." 

"I command the King^s Majesty? Mon Dim/ But 
it would be treason surely." 

" Not greater treason than to have enslaved me." His 
fine eyes were oddly ardent. " Shall I build you this 
castle, child ? " 

Miss looked at him^ and looked away. Her eyelids 
fluttered distractingly. She fetched a sigh. 

" The castle that your Majesty would build for any 
but your Queen must prove a prison.'' 

She rose, and, looking across the room, she met the 
handsome, scowling eyes of the neglected favourite. 
" My Lady Castlemaine looks as if she feared that fortune 
were not favouring her." She was so artless that Charles 
could not be sure there was a double meaning to her 
speech. " Shall we go see how she is faring ? " she 
added, with a disregard for etiquette, whose artlessness he 
also doubted. 

He yielded, of course. That was his way with beauty, 
especially with beauty not yet reduced into possession. 
But the characteristic urbanity with which he sauntered 
beside her across the room was no more than a mask upon 
his chagrin. It was always thus that pretty Frances 
Stewart used him. She always knew how to elude him 
and, always with that cursed air of artlessness, uttered 
seemingly simple sentences that clung to his mind to 
tantalize him. 



The Path of Exile 239 

" The castle your Majesty would build for any but your 
Queen must prove a prison." What had she meant by 
that ? Must he take her to queen before she would 
allow him to build a castle for her ? 

It was an insistent, haunting thought, wracking his 
mind. He knew there was a party hostile to the Duke 
of York and Clarendon, which, fearing the succession of 
the former, and, so, of the grandchildren of the latter, as 
a result of Catherine of Braganza's childlessness, strongly 
favoured the King's divorce. 

It was a singular irony that my Lady Castlemaine 
should be largely responsible for the existence of that 
party. In her hatred for Clarendon, and her blind search 
for weapons that would slay the Chancellor, she had, if 
not actually invented, at least helped to give currency to 
the silly slander that Clarendon had deliberately chosen 
for Charles a barren queen, so as to ensure the ultimate 
succession of his own daughter's children. But she had 
never thought to see that slander recoil upon her as it now 
did ; she had never thought that a party would come to 
rise up in consequence that would urge divorce upon the 
King at the very moment when he was consumed by 
passion for the unattainable, artlessly artful Frances 
Stewart. 

It was Buckingham, greatly daring, who slyly made 
himself that party's mouthpiece. The suggestion startled 
Charles, voicing, as perhaps it did, the temptation by which 
he was secretly assailed. He looked at Buckingham, 
frowning. 

" I %^erily believe you are the wickedest dog in England." 

The impudent gallant made a leg. " For a subject, sire, 
I believe I am." 



240 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Charles — with whom the amusing word seems ever to 
have been more compelling than the serious — laughed his 
soft, mellow laugh. Then he sighed, and the frown of 
thought returned. 

"It would be a wicked thing to make a poor lady 
miserable only because she is my wife, and has no children 
by me, which is no fault of hers." 

He was a thoroughly bad husband, but his indolent 
good-nature shrank from purchasing his desires at the price 
of so much ignominy to the Queen. Before that could 
come to pass it would be necessary to give the screw of 
temptation another turn or two. And it was Miss Stewart 
herself who — in all innocence — supplied what was required 
in that direction. Driven to bay by the importunities of 
Charles, she announced at last that it was her intention 
to retire from Court, so as to preserve herself from the 
temptations by which she was beset, and to determine 
the uneasiness which, through no fault of her own, her 
presence was occasioning the Queen ; and she announced 
further, that, so desperate had she been rendered that she 
would marry any gentleman of fifteen hundred pounds a 
year who would have her in honour. 

You behold Charles reduced to a state of panic. He 
sought to bribe her with offers of any settlements she 
chose to name, or any title she coveted, offering her these 
things at the nation's expense as freely and lightly as the 
jewels he had tossed into her lap, or the collar of pearls 
worth sixteen hundred pounds he had put about her neck. 
The offers were ineffectual, and Charles, driven almost to 
distraction by such invulnerable virtue, might now have 
yielded to the insidious whispers of divorce and re-marriage 
had not my Lady Castlemaine taken a hand in the game. 



The Path of Exile 241 

Her ladyship, dwelling already, as a consequence of 
that royal infatuation for Miss Stewart, In the cold, rarefied 
atmosphere of a neglect that amounted almost to disgrace, 
may have considered with bitterness how her attempt to 
exploit her hatred of the Chancellor had recoiled upon 
herself. 

In the blackest hour of her despair, when hope seemed 
almost dead, she made a discovery — or, rather, the King's 
page, the ineffable Chiffinch, Lord Keeper of the Back 
Stairs and Grand-Eunuch of the Royal Seraglio, who was 
her ladyship's friend, made It and communicated It to her. 

There had been one ardent respondent in the Duke of 
Richmond to that proclamation of Miss Stewart's that 
she would marry any gentleman of fifteen hundred pounds 
a year. Long enamoured of her, his Grace saw here his 
opportunity, and he seized it. Consequently he was now 
in constant attendance upon her, but very secretly, since 
he feared the King's displeasure. 

My Lady Castlemaine, having discovered this, and being 
well served in the matter by Chiffinch, spied her oppor- 
tunity. It came one cold night towards the end of 
February of that year 1667. Charles, going below at a 
late hour to visit Miss Stewart, when he judged that she 
would be alone, was Informed by her maid that Miss was 
not receiving, a headache compelling her to keep her 
room. 

His Majesty returned above In a very Ill-humour, to 
find himself confronted in his own apartments by my 
Lady Castlemaine. Chiffinch had introduced her by the 
back-stairs entrance. Charles stiffened at sight of her. 

" I hope I may be allowed to pay my homage," says 
she, on a note of irony, " although the angelic Stewart 

16 



242 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

has forbid you to see me at my own house. I come to 
condole with you wpon the affliction and grief into which 
the new-fashioned chastity of the inhuman Stewart has 
reduced your Majesty." 

" You are pleased to be amused, ma'am," says Charles 
frostily. 

" I will not," she returned him, " make use of reproaches 
which would disgrace myself ; still less will I endeavour 
to excuse frailties in myself which nothing can justify, 
since your constancy for me deprives me of all defence." 
Her ladyship, you see, had a considerable gift of sarcasm. 

" In that case, may I ask you why you have come ? " 

"To open your eyes. Because I cannot bear that you 
should be made the jest of your own Court." 

" Madam ! " 

" Ah ! You didn't know, of course, that you are being 
laughed at for the gross manner in which you are being 
imposed upon by the Stewart's affectations, any more 
than you know that whilst you are denied admittance to 
her apartments, under the pretence of some indisposition, 
the Duke of Richmond is with her now." 

" That is false," he was beginning, very indignantly. 

" I do not desire you to take my word for it. If you 
will follow me, you will no longer be the dupe of a false 
prude, who makes you act so ridiculous a part." 

She took him, still half-resisting, by the hand, and in 
silence led him, despite his reluctance, back by thew^ay 
he had so lately come. Outside her rival's door she left 
him, but she paused at the end of the gallery to make 
sure that he had entered. 

Within he found himself confronted by several of Miss 
Stewart's chambermaids, who respectfully barred his 



The Path of Exile 243 

way, one of them informing him scarcely above a whisper 
that her mistress had been very ill since his Majesty left, 
but that, being gone to bed, she was, God be thanked, in 
a very tine sleep. 

" That I must see," said the King. And, since one of 
the women placed herself before the door of the inner 
room, his Majesty unceremoniously took her by the 
shoulders and put her aside. 

He thrust open the door, and stepped without further 
ceremony into the well-lighted bedroom. Miss Stewart 
occupied the handsome, canopied bed. But far from being, 
as he had been told, in " a very fine sleep," she was sitting 
up ; and far from presenting an ailing appearance, she 
looked radiantly well and very lovely in her diaphanous 
sleeping toilet, with golden ringlets in distracting disarray. 
Nor was she alone. By her pillow sat one who, if at first 
to be presumed her physician, proved upon scrutiny to be 
the Duke of Richmond. 

The King's swarthy face turned a variety of colours, 
his languid eyes lost all trace of languor. Those who 
knew his nature might have expected that he would now 
deliver himself with that sneering sarcasm, that indolent 
cynicism, which he used upon occasion. But he was too 
deeply stirred for acting. His self-control deserted him 
entirely. Exactly what he said has not been preserved for 
us. All that we are told is that he signified his resentment 
in such terms as he had never before used ; and that his 
Grace, almost petrified by the King's most royal rage, 
uttered never a word in answer. The windows of the 
room overlooked the Thames. The King's eyes strayed 
towards them. Richmond was slight of build, Charles 
vigorous and athletic. His Grace took the door betimes, 

16* 



244 ^^^^ Historical Nights' Entertainment 

lest the window should occur to his Majesty, and so he 
left the lady alone with the outraged monarch. 

Thereafter Charles did not have it all quite his own way. 
Miss Stewart faced him in an indignation nothing less 
than his own, and she was very far from attempting any 
such justification of herself, or her conduct, as he may 
have expected. 

" Will your Majesty be more precise as to the grounds 
of your complaint ? " she invited him challengingly. 

That checked his wildness. It brought him up with a 
round turn. His jaw fell, and he stared at her, lost now 
for words. Of this she took the fullest advantage. 

" If I am not allowed to receive visits from a man of 
the Duke of Richmond's rank, who comes with honour- 
able intentions, then I am a slave in a free country. I 
know of no engagement that should prevent me from dis- 
posing of my hand as I think fit. But if this is not per- 
mitted me in your Majesty's dominions, I do not beHeve 
there is any power on earth can prevent me going back 
to France, and throwing myself into a convent, there to 
enjoy the peace denied me at this Court." 

With that she melted into tears, and his discomfiture 
was complete. On his knees he begged her forgiveness 
for the injury he had done her. But Miss was not in a 
forgiving humour. 

" If your Majesty would graciously consent to leave 
me now in peace," said she, " you would avoid offending 
by a longer visit those who accompanied or conducted 
you to my apartments." 

She had drawn a bow at a venture, but shrewdly, and 
the shaft went home. Charles rose, red in the face. 
Swearing he would never speak to her again, he stalked out. 



The Path of Exile 245 

Later, however, he considered. If he felt bitterly 
aggrieved, he must also have realized that he had no just 
grounds for this, and that in his conduct in Miss Stewart's 
room he had been entirely ridiculous. She was rightly 
resolved against being lightly worn by any man. If any- 
thing, the reflection must have fanned his passion. It 
was impossible, he thought, that she should love that 
knock-kneed fellow, Richmond, who had no graces either 
of body or of mind, and if she suffered the man's suit, 
it must be, as she had all but said, so that she might be 
delivered from the persecution to which his Majesty had 
submitted her. The thought of her marrying Richmond, 
or, indeed, anybody, was unbearable to Charles, and it 
may have stifled his last scruple in the matter of the divorce. 

His first measure next morning was to banish Rich- 
mond from the Court. But Richmond had not stayed 
for the order to quit. The King's messenger found him 
gone already. 

Then Charles took counsel in the matter with the Chan- 
cellor. Clarendon's habitual gravity was increased to 
sternness. He spoke to the King — taking the fullest 
advantage of the tutelary position in which for the last 
twenty-five years he had stood to him — much as he had 
spoken when Charles had proposed to make Barbara 
Palmer a Lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, saving that 
he was now even more uncompromising. The King was 
not pleased with him. But just as he had had his way, 
despite the Chancellor, in that other matter, so he would 
have his way despite him now. 

This time, however, the Chancellor took no risks. He 
feared too much the consequences for Charles, and he 
determined to spare no effort to avoid a scandal, and to 



246 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

save the already deeply-injured Queen. So he went 
secretly to work to outwit the King. He made himself 
the protector of those lovers, the Duke of Richmond and 
Miss Stewart, with the result that one dark night, a week 
or two later, the lady stole away from the Palace of White- 
hall, and made her way to the Bear Tavern, at the Bridge- 
foot, Westminster, where Richmond awaited her with a 
coach. And so, by the secret favour of the Lord Chan- 
cellor, they stole away to Kent and matrimony. 

That was checkmate indeed to Charles, who swore all 
manner of things in his mortification. But it was not 
until some six weeks later that he learnt by whose agency 
the thing had been accomplished. He learnt it, not a 
doubt, from my Lady Castlemaine. 

The estrangement between her ladyship and the King, 
which dated back to the time of his desperate courtship 
of Miss Stewart, was at last made up ; and once again 
we see her ladyship triumphant, and firmly established in 
the amorous King's affections. She had cause to be 
grateful to the Chancellor for this. But her vindictive 
nature remembered only the earlier injury still unavenged. 
Here at last was her chance to pay off that score. Claren- 
don, beset by enemies on every hand, yet trusting in the 
King whom he had served so well, stood his ground un- 
intimidated and unmoved— an oak that had weathered 
mightier storms than this. He did not dream that he was 
in the power of an evil woman. And that woman used 
her power. When all else failed, she told the King of 
Clarendon's part in the flight of Miss Stewart, and lest the 
King should be disposed to pardon the Chancellor out of 
consideration for his motives, represented him as a self- 
seeker, and charged him with having acted thus so as to 



The Path of Exile 247 

make sure of keeping his daughter's children by the Duke 
of York in the succession. 

That was the end. Charles withdrew his protection, 
threw Clarendon to the wolves. He sent the Duke of 
Albemarle to him with a command that he should sur- 
render his seals of office. The proud old man refused 
to yield his seals to any but the King himself. He may 
have hoped that the memory of all that lay between them 
would rise up once more when they were face to face. 
So he came in person to Whitehall to make surrender. 
He walked dehberately, firmly, and with head erect, 
through the hostile throng of courtiers — " especially the 
bufFoones and ladys of pleasure,'' as Evelyn says. 

Of his departure thence, his disgrace now consummated, 
Pepys has left us a vivid picture : 

" When he went from the King on Monday morning my 
Lady Castlemaine was in bed (though about twelve 
o'clock), and ran out in her smock into her aviary looking 
into Whitehall Gardens ; and thither her woman brought 
her her nightgown ; and she stood, blessing herself at the 
old man's going away ; and several of the gallants of White- 
hall — of which there were many staying to see the Chan- 
cellor's return — did talk to her in her birdcage ; among 
others Blandford, telling her she was the bird of passage.'* 

Clarendon lingered, melancholy and disillusioned, at 
his fine house in Piccadilly until, impeached by Parhament, 
he remembered Strafford's fate, and set out to tread once 
more and for the remainder of his days the path of exile. 

Time avenged him. Two of his granddaughters — Mary 
and Anne — reigned successively as queens in England. 



X, The Tragedy of Herrenhaitsen 

Count Philip Konigsmark and the 
Princess Sophia Dorothea 



X. The Tragedy of HerrenhaMsen 



HE was accounted something of a scamp throughout 
Europe, and particularly in England, where he had 
been associated with his brother in the killing of Mr. 
Thynne. But the seventeenth century did not look for 
excessively nice scruples in a soldier of fortune ; and so it 
condoned the lack of virtue in Count Philip Christof 
Konigsmark for the sake of his personal beauty, his ele- 
gance, his ready wit, and his magnificent address. The 
court of Hanover made him warmly welcome, counting 
itself the richer for his presence ; whilst he, on his side, was 
retained there by the Colonelcy in the Electoral Guard to 
which he had been appointed, and by his deep and ill- 
starred affection for the Princess Sophia Dorothea, the wife 
of the Electoral Prince, who later was to reign in England 
as King George I. 

His acquaintance with her dated back to childhood, for 
they had been playmates at her father's ducal court of 
Zeli, where Konigsmark had been brought up. With 
adolescence he had gone out into the world to seek the 
broader education which it offered to men of quality and 
spirit, He had fought bulls in Madrid, and the infidel 
overseas ; he had wooed adventure wherever it was to be 
met, until romance hung about him like an aura. Thus 

251 



252 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

Sophia met him again, a dazzling personality, whose efful- 
gence shone the more brightly against the dull background 
of that gross Hanoverian court ; an accomplished, graceful, 
self-reliant man of the world, in whom she scarcely recog- 
nized her sometime playmate. 

The change he found in her was no less marked, though 
of a different kind. The sweet child he had known — she 
had been married in 1682, at the age of sixteen — had come 
in her ten years of wedded life to the fulfilment of the 
handsome promise of her maidenhood. But her beauty 
was spiritualized by a certain wistfulness that had not been 
there before, that should not have been there now had all 
been well. The sprightliness inherent in her had not 
abated, but it had assumed a certain warp of bitterness ; 
humour, which is of the heart, had given place in her to 
wit, which is of the mind, and this wit was barbed, and a 
little reckless of how or where it offended. 

Konigsmark observed these changes that the years 
had wrought, and knew enough of her story to account for 
them. He knew of her thwarted love for her cousin, the 
Duke of Wolfenbiittel, thwarted for the sake of dynastic 
ambition, to the end that by marrying her to the Electoral 
Prince George the whole of the Duchy of Liineberg might 
be united. Tlius, for political reasons, she had been thrust 
into a union that was mutually loveless ; for Prince George 
had as little affection to bring to it as herself. Yet for a 
prince the door to compensations is ever open. Prince 
George's taste, as is notorious, was ever for ugly women, 
and this taste he indulged so freely, openly, and grossly 
that the coldness towards him vv^ith which Sophia had 
entered the alliance was eventually converted into disgust 
and contempt. 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 253 

Thus matters stood between that ill-matched couple ; 
contempt on her side, cold dislike on his, a dislike that was 
fully shared by his father, the Elector, Ernest Augustus, 
and encouraged in the latter by the Countess von Platen. 

Madame von Platen, the wife of the Elector's chief 
minister of state, was — with the connivance of her despic- 
able husband, who saw therein the means to his own 
advancement — the acknowledged mistress of Ernest 
Augustus. She was a fleshly, gauche, vain, and ill-favoured 
woman. Malevolence sat in the creases of her painted 
face, and peered from her mean eyes. Yet, such as she 
was, the Elector Ernest loved her. His son's taste for 
ugly women would appear to have been hereditary. 

Between the Countess and Sophia there was a deadly 
feud. The princess had mortally offended her father-in- 
law's favourite. Not only had she never troubled to 
dissemble the loathing which that detestable woman in- 
spired in her, but she had actually given it such free and 
stinging expression as had provoked against Madame von 
Platen the derision of the court, a derision so ill-concealed 
that echoes of it had reached its object, and made her aware 
of the source from whence it sprang. 

It was into this atmosphere of hostility that the advent 
of the elegant, romantic Konigsmark took place. He found 
the stage set for comedy of a grim and bitter kind, which 
he was himself, by his recklessness, to convert into tragedy. 

It began by the Countess von Platen's falling in love 
with him. It was some time before he suspected it, though 
heaven knows he did not lack for self-esteem. Perhaps it 
was this very self-esteem that blinded him here to the 
appaUing truth. Yet in the end understanding came to 
him. When the precise significance of the fond leer of 



254 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

that painted harridan's repellent coquetry was borne in 
upon him he felt the skin of his body creep and roughen. 
But he dissembled craftily. He was a venal scamp, 
after all, and in the court of Hanover he saw opportunities 
to employ his gifts and his knowledge of the great world 
in such a way as to win to eminence. He saw that the 
Elector's favourite could be of use to him ; and it is not 
your adventurer's way to look too closely into the nature 
of the ladder by which he has the chance to climb. 

Skilfully, craftily, then, he played the enamoured 
countess so long as her fondness for him might be useful, 
her hostiHty detrimental. But once the Colonelcy of the 
Electoral Guards was firmly in his grasp, and an intimate 
friendship had ripened between himself and Prince Charles 
—the Elector's younger son — sufficiently to ensure his 
future, he plucked off the mask and allied himself with 
Sophia in her hostiHty towards Madame von Platen. He 
did worse. Some little time thereafter, whilst on a visit 
to the court of Poland, he made one> night in his cups a 
droll story of the amorous persecution which he had suffered 
at Madame von Platen's hands. 

It was a tale that set the profligate company in a roar. 
But there was one present who afterwards sent a report of 
it to the Countess, and you conceive the nature of the 
emotions it aroused in her. Her rage was the greater for 
being stifled. It was obviously impossible for her to appeal 
to her lover, the Elector, to avenge her. From the Elector, 
above all others, must the matter be kept concealed. 
But not on that account would she forgo the vengeance 
due. She would present a reckoning in full ere all was 
done, and bitterly should the presumptuous young 
adventurer who had flouted her be made to pay. 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 255 

The opportunity was very soon to be afforded her. It 
arose more or less directly out of an act in which she indulged 
her spite against Sophia. This lay in throwing Melusina 
Schulembcrg into the arms of the Electoral Prince. 
Melusina, who was years afterwards to be created Duchess 
of Kendal, had not yet attained to that completeness of 
lank, bony hideousness that was later to distinguish her 
in England. But even in youth she could boast of little 
attraction. Prince George, however, was easily attracted. 
A dull, undignified libertine, addicted to over-eating, heavy 
drinking, and low conversation, he found in Melusina von 
Schulemberg an ideal mate. Her installation as maitresse 
eu'titre took place publicly at a ball given by Prince George 
at Herrenhausen, a ball at which the Princess Sophia was 
present. 

Accustomed, inured, as she was to the coarse profligacy 
of her dullard husband, and indifferent to his philandering 
as her contempt of him now left her, yet in the affront thus 
publicly oft'ered her, she felt that the limit of endurance 
had been reached. Next day it was found that she had 
disappeared from Herrenhausen. She had fled to her 
father's court at Zell. 

But her father received her coldly ; lectured her upon 
the freedom and levity of her manners, which he condemned 
as unbecoming the dignity of her rank ; recommended her 
to use in future greater prudence, and a proper, wifely 
submission ; and, the homily delivered, packed her back 
to her husband at Herrenhausen. 

George's reception of her on her return was bitterly 
hostile. She had been guilty of a more than usual, of an 
unpardonable want of respect for him. She must learn 
what was due to her station, and to her husband. He 



256 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

would thank her to instruct herself in these matters against 
his return from Berlin, whither he was about to journeyj 
and he warned her that he would suffer no more tantrums 
of that kind. 

Thus he delivered himself, with cold hate in his white, 
flabby, frog-face and in the very poise of his squat, un- 
gainly figure. 

Thereafter he departed for Berlin, bearing hate of her 
with him, and leaving hate and despair behind. 

It was then, in this despair, that Sophia looked about her 
for a true friend to lend her the aid she so urgently required ; 
to rescue her from her intolerable, soul-destroying fate. 
And at her elbow, against this dreadful need. Destiny had 
placed her sometime playmate, her most devoted friend — 
as she accounted him, and as, indeed, he was — the elegant, 
reckless Konigsmark, with his beautiful face, his golden 
mane, and his unfathomable blue eyes. 

Walking with him one summer day between clipped 
hedges in the formal gardens of Herrenhausen — that 
palace as squat and ungraceful as those who had built 
and who inhabited it — she opened her heart to him very 
fully, allowed him, in her overwhelming need of sympathy, 
to see things which for very shame she had hitherto veiled 
from all other eyes. She kept nothing back ; she dwelt 
upon her unhappiness with her boorish husband, told him 
of slights and indignities innumerable, whose pain she had 
hitherto so bravely dissembled, confessed, even, that he had 
beaten her upon occasion. 

Konigsmark went red and white by turns, with the 
violent surge of his emotions, and the deep sapphire eyes 
blazed with wrath when she came at last to the culminating 
horror of blows endured. 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 257 

" It is enough, madame," he cried. " I swear to you, 
as Heaven hears me, that he shall be punished." 

*' Punished ? " she echoed, checking in her stride, and 
looked at him with a smile of sad incredulity. " It is not 
his punishment I seek, my friend, but my own salva- 
tion." 

" The one can be accomplished with the other," he 
answered hotly, and struck the cut-steel hilt of his sword. 
" You shall be rid of this lout as soon as ever I can come to 
him. I go after him to Berlin to-night." 

The colour all faded from her cheeks, her sensitive lips 
fell apart, as she looked at him aghast. 

" Why, what would you do ? What do you mean ? " she 
asked him. 

" I v/ill send him the length of my sword, and so make 
a widow of you, madame." 

She shook her head. " Princes do not fight," she said, 
on a note of contempt. 

" I shall so shame him that he will have no alternative — 
unless, indeed, he is shameless. I will choose my occasion 
shrewdly, put an affront on him one evening in his cups, 
when drink shall have made him valiant enough to commit 
himself to a meeting. If even that will not answer, and 
he still shields himself behind his rank — why, there are 
other ways to serve him." He was thinking, perhaps, of 
Mr. Thynne. 

The heat of so much reckless, romantic fury on her 
behalf warmed the poor lady, who had so long been chilled 
for want of sympathy, and starved of love. Impulsively 
she caught his hand in hers. 

" My friend, my friend ! " she cried, on a note that 
quivered and broke, " you are mad — wonderfully, beauti- 

17 



258 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

fully mad, but mad. What would become of you if you did 
this ? " 

He swept the consideration aside by a contemptuous, 
almost angry gesture. " Does that matter ? I am con- 
cerned with what is to become of you. I was born for your 
service, my princess, and the service being rendered ..." 
He shrugged and smiled, threw out his hands and let them 
fall again to his sides in an eloquent gesture. He was the 
complete courtier, the knight-errant, the romantic preux- 
chevalier all in one. 

She drew closer to him, took the blue lapels of his mili- 
tary coat in her white hands, and looked pathetically up 
into his beautifnl face. If ever she wanted to kiss a man, 
she surely wanted to kiss Konigsmark in that moment, but 
as she might have kissed a loving brother, in token of her 
deep gratitude for his devotion to her who had known so 
little true devotion. 

" If you knew," she said, " what balsam this proof of 
your friendship has poured upon the wounds of my soul, 
you would understand my utter lack of words in which to 
thank you. You dumbfound me, my friend ; I can find 
no expression for my gratitude." 

" I ask no gratitude," quoth he. " I am all gratitude 
myself that you should have come to me in the hour of your 
need. I but ask your leave to serve you in my own way." 

She shook her head. She saw his blue eyes grow troubled. 
He was about to speak, to protest, but she hurried on. 
** Serve me if you will — God knows I need the service of a 
loyal friend — but serve me as I shall myself decide — no 
other way." 

" But what alternative service can exist ? " he asked, 
almost impatiently. 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen- 259 

" I have it in mind to escape from this horrible place — 
to quit Hanover, never to return." 

" But to go whither ? " 

" Does it matter ? Anywhere away from this hateful 
court, and this hateful life ; anywhere, since my father will 
not let me find shelter at Zell, as I had hoped. Had it not 
been for the thought of my children, I should have fled 
long ago. For the sake of those two little ones I have 
suffered patiently through all these years. But the limit 
of endurance has been reached and passed. Take me away, 
Konigsmark ! " She was clutching his lapels again. " If 
you would really serve me, help me to escape." 

His hands descended upon hers, and held them prisoned 
against his breast. A flush crept into his fair cheeks, there 
was a sudden kindling of the eyes that looked down into 
her own piteous ones. These sensitive, romantic natures 
are quickly stirred to passion, ever ready to yield to the 
adventure of it. 

" My princess," he said, " you may count upon your 
Konigsmark while he has life." Disengaging her hands 
from his lapels, but still holding them, he bowed low over 
them, so low that his heavy golden mane tumbled forward 
on either side of his handsome head to form a screen under 
cover of which he pressed his lips upon her fingers. 

She let him have his will with her hands. It was little 
enough reward for so much devotion. 

" I thank you again," she breathed. " And now I 
must think — I must consider where I can count upon finding 
refuge." 

That cooled his ardour a little. His own high romantic 
notion was, no doubt, to fling her there and then upon the 
withers of his horse, and so ride out into the wide world to 

17* 



26o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

carve a kingdom for her with his sword. Her sober words 
dispelled the dream, revealed to him that it was not quite 
intended he should hereafter be her custodian. And there 
for the moment the matter was suspended. 

Both had behaved quite recklessly. Each should have 
remembered that an Electoral Princess is not wise to grant 
a protracted interview, accompanied by lapel-holding, hand- 
holding, and hand-kissings, within sight of the windows of 
a palace. And, as it happened, behind one of those v/in- 
dows lurked the Countess von Platen, watching them 
jealously, and without any disposition to construe the 
meeting innocently. Was she not the deadly enemy of 
both ? Had not the Princess whetted satire upon her, and 
had not Konigsmark scorned the love she proffered him, 
and then unpardonably published it in a ribald story to 
excite the mirth of profligates ? 

That evening the Countess purposefully sought her lover, 
the Elector. 

" Your son is away in Prussia," quoth she. " Who 
guards his honour in his absence ? " 

" George's honour ? " quoth the Elector, bulging eyes 
staring at the Countess. He did not laugh, as might have 
been expected at the notion of guarding something whose 
existence was not easily discerned. He had no sense of 
humour, as his appearance suggested. He was a short, 
fat man with a face shaped like a pear — narrow in the brow 
and heavy in the jowl. " What the devil do you mean ? " 
he asked. 

" I mean that this foreign adventurer, Konigsmark, 
and Sophia grow too intimate." 

" Sophia ! " Thick eyebrows were raised until they 
almost met the line of his ponderous peruke. His 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 261 

face broke into malevolent creases expressive of con- 
tempt. 

" That white-faced ninny ! Bah ! " Her very virtue 
was matter for his scorn. 

" It is these white-faced ninnies can be most sly," 
replied the Countess, out of her worldly wisdom. " Listen 
a moment now." And she related, with interest rather 
than discount, you may be sure, what she had witnessed 
that afternoon. 

The malevolence deepened in his face. He had never 
loved Sophia, and he felt none the kinder towards her for 
her recent trip to Zell. Then, too, being a libertine, and 
the father of a libertine, it logically followed that unchastity 
in his women-folk was in his eyes the unpardonable sin. 

He heaved himself out of his deep chair. " Hov/ far 
has this gone ? " he demanded. 

Prudence restrained the Countess from any over-state- 
ment that might afterwards be disproved. Besides, 
there was not the need, if she could trust her senses. 
Patience and vigilance vvould presently afford her all the 
evidence required to damn the pair. She said as much, 
and promised the Elector that she would exercise herself 
the latter quality in his son's service. Again the Elector 
did not find it grotesque that his mistress should appoint 
herself the guardian of his son's honour. 

The Countess went about that congenial task with zeal 
— though George's honour was the least thing that con- 
cerned her. What concerned her was the dishonour of 
Sophia, and the ruin of Konigsmark. So she watched 
assiduously, and set others, too, to watch for her and 
to report. And almost daily now she had for the Elector 
a tale of whisperings and hand-pressings, and secret stolen 



262 The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

meetings between the guilty twain. The Elector enraged, 
and would have taken action, but that the guileful Countess 
curbed him. All this was not enough. An accusation 
that could not be substantiated would ruin all chance of 
punishing the offenders, might recoil, indeed, upon the 
accusers by bringing the Duke of Zell to his daughter's 
aid. So they must wait yet awhile until they held more 
absolute proof of this intrigue. 

And then at last one day the Countess sped in haste 
to the Elector with word that Konigsmark and the Princess 
had shut themselves up together in the garden pavilion. 
Let him come at once, and he should so discover them for 
himself, and thus at last be able to take action. The 
Countess was flushed with triumph. Be that meeting never 
so innocent — and Madame von Platen could not, being 
what she was, and having seen what she had seen, con- 
ceive it innocent — it was in an Electoral Princess an unfor- 
givable indiscretion, to take the most charitable view, 
which none would dream of taking. So the Elector, 
fiercely red in the face, hurried off to the pavilion with 
Madame von Platen following. He came too late, despite 
the diligence of his spy. 

Sophia had been there, but her interview with the 
Count had been a brief one. She had to tell him that at 
last she was resolved in all particulars. She would seek a 
refuge at the court of her cousin, the Duke of Wolfen- 
biittel, who, she was sure — for the sake of what once had 
lain between them — would not now refuse to shelter and 
protect her. Of Konigsmark she desired that he should 
act as her escort to her cousin's court. 

Konigsmark was ready, eager. In Hanover he would 
leave nothing that he regretted. At Wolfenbiittel, having 



The Tragedy of Herrenliausen 263 

served Sophia faithfully, his ever-growing, romantic 
passion for her might find expression. She would make 
all dispositions, and advise him when she was ready to 
set out. But they must use caution, for they were being 
spied upon. Madame von Platen's over-eagerness had 
in part betrayed her. It was, indeed, their consciousness 
of espionage which had led to this dangerous meeting 
in the seclusion of the pavilion, and which urged him to 
linger after Sophia had left him. They were not to be 
seen to emerge together. 

The young Dane sat alone on the window-seat, his chin 
in his hands, his eyes dreamy, a faint smile on his shapely 
lips, when Ernest Augustus burst furiously in, the Countess 
von Platen Hngering just beyond the threshold. The 
Elector's face was apoplectically purple from rage and 
haste, his breath came in w^heezing gasps. His bulging 
eyes swept round the chamber, and fastened finallyj 
glaring, upon the startled Konigsmark. 

" Where is the Princess ? " he blurted out. 

The Count espied Madame von Platen in the back- 
ground, and had the scent of mischief very strong. But 
he preserved an air of innocent mystification. He rose 
and answered with courteous ease : 

" Your Highness is seeking her ? Shall I ascertain for 
you ? " 

At a loss, Ernest Augustus stared a moment, then 
flung a glance over his shoulder at the Countess. 

" I was told that her Highness was here," he said. 

" Plainly," said Konigsmark, wdth perfect calm, " you 
have been misinformed." And his quiet glance and 
gesture invited the Elector to look round for himself. 

" How long have you been here yourself I " Feeling at 



264 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

a disadvantage, the Elector avoided the direct question 
that was in his mind. 
" Half an hour at least.' 

*' And in that time you have not seen the Princess ? " 
" Seen the Princess ? " Konigsmark's brows were knit 
perplexedly. " I scarcely understand your Highness." 

The Elector moved a step and trod on a soft substance. 
He looked down, then stooped, and rose again, holding 
in his hand a woman's glove. 

" What's this ? " quoth he. " Whose glove is this ? " 
If Konigsmark's heart missed a beat — as well it may 
have done — he did not betray it outwardly. He 
smiled ; indeed he almost laughed. 

'' Your Highness is amusing himself at my expense by 
asking me questions that only a seer could answer." 

The Elector was still considering him with his pon- 
derously suspicious glance, when quick steps approached. 
A serving-maid, one of Sophia's women, appeared in the 
doorway of the pavilion. 

" What do you want ? " the Elector snapped [at 
her. 

" A glove her Highness lately dropped here," was the 
timid answer, innocently precipitating the very discovery 
which the woman had been too hastily dispatched to 
avert. 

The Elector flung the glove at her, and there was a 
creak of evil laughter from him. When she had departed, 
he turned again to Konigsmark. 

*' You fence skilfully," said he, sneering, " too skilfully 
for an honest man. Will you now tell me without any 
more of this, precisely what the Princess Sophia was doing 
here with you ? " 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 265 

Konigsmark drew himself stiffly up, looking squarely 
into the furnace of the Elector's face. 

'' Your Highness assumes that the Princess was here 
with me, and a prince is not to be contradicted, even 
when he insults a lady whose spotless purity is beyond 
his understanding. But your Highness can hardly expect 
me to become in never so slight a degree a party to that 
insult by vouchsafing any answer to your question." 

" That is your last word, sir ? " The Elector shook 
with suppressed anger. 

" Your Highness cannot think that words are necessary ? " 

The bulging eyes grew narrow, the heavy nether lip was 
thmst forth in scorn and menace. 

" You are relieved, sir, of your duties in the Electoral 
Guard, and as that is the only tie binding you to Hanover, 
we see no reason why your sojourn here should be pro- 
tracted." 

Konigsmark bowed stiffly, formally. " It shall end, 
your Highness, as soon as I can make the necessary 
arrangements for my departure — ^in a week at most." 

" You are accorded three days, sir." The Elector turned, 
and waddled out, leaving Konigsmark to breathe freely 
again. The three days should suffice for the Princess 
also. It was very well. 

The Elector, too, thought that it was very well. He 
had given this troublesome fellow his dismissal, averted a 
scandal, and placed his daughter-in-law out of the reach 
of harm. Madame von Platen was the only one concerned 
who thought that it was not well at all, the consumma- 
tion being far from that which she had desired. She had 
dreamt of a flaming scandal, that should utterly con- 
tume her two enemies, Sophia and Konigsmark. Instead, 



266 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

she saw them both escaping, and the fact that she was — 
as she may have supposed — effectively separating two 
loving hearts could be no sort of adequate satisfaction for 
such bitter spite as hers. Therefore she plied her wicked 
wits to force an issue more germane to her desires. 

The course she took was fraught with a certain peril. 
Yet confident that at worst she could justify it, and little 
fearing that the worst would happen, she boldly went to 
work. She forged next day a brief note in which the 
Princess Sophia urgently bade Konigsmark to come to her 
at ten o'clock that night in her own apartments, and 
with threat and bribe induced the waiting woman of the 
glove to bear that letter. 

Now it so happened that Konigsmark, through the kind 
offices of Sophia's maid-of-honour. Mademoiselle de 
Knesebeck, who was in the secret of their intentions, had 
sent the Princess a note that morning, briefly stating the 
urgency of departure, and begging her so to arrange 
that she could leave Herrenhausen with him on the 
morrow. He imagined the note now brought him to be 
in answer to that appeal of his. Its genuineness he never 
doubted, being unacquainted with Sophia's writing. He 
was aghast at the rashness which dictated such an assigna- 
tion, yet never hesitated as to keeping it. It was not his 
way to hesitate. He trusted to the gods who watch over 
the destinies of the bold. 

And meanwhile Madame von Platen was reproaching her 
lover with having dealt too softly with the Dane. 

" Bah ! " said the Elector. " To-morrow he goes his 
ways, and we are rid of him. Is not that enough ? " 

" Enough, if, soon as he goes, he goes not too late 
already," quoth she. 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 267 

" Now what will you be hinting r " he asked her 
peevishly. 

" I'll be more plain. I will tell you what I know. I t 
is this. Konigsmark has an assignation with the Princess 
Sophia this very night at ten o'clock — and where do you 
suppose ? In her Highness's own apartments." 

The Elector came to his feet with an oath. " That is 
not true ! " he cried. " It cannot be ! '^ 

" Then I'll say no more," quoth Jezebel, and snapped 
her thin lips. 

" Ah, but you shall. How do you know this ? " 

" That I cannot tell you without betraying a confidence. 
Let it suffice you that I do know it. Consider now whether 
in banishing this profligate you have sufficiently avenged 
the honour of your son." 

" My God, if I thought this were true. . . ." He choked 
with rage, stood shaking a moment, then strode to the 
door, calling. 

" The truth is easily ascertained," said Madame. 
*' Conceal yourself in the Rittersaal, and await his coming 
forth. But you had best go attended, for it is a very reck- 
less rogue, and he has been known aforetime to practise 
murder." 

Whilst the Elector, acting upon this advice, was getting 
his men together, Konigsmark was wasting precious 
moments in Sophia's antechamber, whilst Mademoiselle 
de Knesebeck apprised her Highness of his visit. Sophia 
had already retired to bed, and the amazing announce- 
ment of the Count's presence there startled her into a fear 
of untoward happenings. She was overwhelmed, too, by 
the rashness of this step of his, coming after the events 
of yesterday. If it should be known that he had visited 



268 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

her thus, terrible consequences might ensue. She rose, 
and with Mademoiselle de Knesebeck's aid made ready 
to receive him. Yet for all that she made haste, the 
precious irreclaimable moments sped. 

She came to him at last. Mademoiselle de Knesebeck 
following, for propriety's sake. 

" What is it ? " she asked him breathlessly. " What 
brings you here at such an hour ? " 

" What brings me ? " quoth he, surprised at that 
reception. " Why, your commands — your letter." 

" My letter ? What letter ? " 

A sense of doom, of being trapped, suddenly awoke 
in him. He plucked forth the treacherous note, and 
proffered it. 

" Why, what does this mean ? " She swept a white 
hand over her eyes and brows, as if to brush away some- 
thing that obscured her vision. " That is not mine, I 
never wrote it. How could you dream I should be so 
imprudent as to bid you hither, and at such an hour ? 
How could you dream it ? " 

" You are right," said he, and laughed, perhaps to ease 
her alarm, perhaps in sheer bitter mirth. " It will be, 
no doubt, the work of our friend, Madame von Platen. 
I had best begone. For the rest, my travelHng chaise 
will wait from noon until sunset to-morrow by the Markt 
Kirck in Hanover, and I shall wait within it. I shall 
hope to conduct you safely to Wolfenbiittel." 

" I will come, I will come. But go now — oh, go ! " 

He looked very deeply into her eyes — a valedictory 
glance against the worst befalling him. Then he took her 
hand, bowed over it and kissed it, and so departed. 

He crossed the outer ante-room, descended the short 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 269 

flight of stairs, and pushed open the heavy door of the 
Hall of Knights. He passed through, and thrust the 
door behind him, then stood a moment looking round the 
vast apartment. If he was too late to avoid the springs 
of the baited trap, it was here that they should snap 
upon him. Yet all was still. A single lamp on a table 
in the middle of the vast chamber shed a feeble, flickering 
light, yet sufficient to assure him that no one waited here. 
He sighed relief, wrapped his cloak about him, and set 
out swiftly to cross the hall. 

But even as he passed, four shadows detached them- 
selves from the tall stove, resolved themselves into armed 
men, and sprang after him. 

He heard them, wheeled about, flung off his cloak, 
and disengaged his sword, all with the speed of lightning 
and the address of the man who for ten years had walked 
amid perils, and learned to depend upon his blade. That 
swift action sealed his doom. Their orders were to take 
him living or dead, and standing in awe of his repute, they 
were not the men to incur risks. Even as he came on 
guard, a partisan grazed his head, and another opened his 
breast. 

He went down, coughing and gasping, blood dabbling 
his bright golden hair, and staining the priceless Mechlin 
at his throat, yet his right hand still desperately clutching 
his useless sword. 

His assassins stood about him, their partisans levelled 
to strike again, and summoned him to yield. Then, beside 
one of them, he suddenly beheld the Countess von Platen 
materializing out of the surrounding shadows as it seemed, 
and behind her the squat, ungraceful figure of the Elector. 
He fought for breath. 



270 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

" I am slain," he gasped, " and as I am to appear before 
my Maker I swear to you that the Princess Sophia is 
innocent. Spare her at least, your Highness." 

" Innocent ! " said the Elector hoarsely. *' Then what 
did you now in her apartments ? " 

" It was a trap set for us by this foul hag, who . . ." 

The heel of the vindictive harridan ground viciously 
upon the lips of the dying man and choked his utterance. 
Thereafter the halberts finished him off, and he was 
buried there and then, in lime, under the floor of the 
Hall of Knights, under the very spot where he had fallen, 
which was long to remain imbrued with his blood. 

Thus miserably perished the glittering Konigsmark, 
a martyr to his own irrepressible romanticism. 

' As for Sophia, better might it have been for her had 
she shared his fate that night. She was placed under 
arrest next morning, and Prince George was summoned 
back from BerUn at once. 

The evidence may have satisfied him that his honour 
had not suffered, for he was disposed to let the matter 
drop, content that they should remain in the forbidding 
relations which had existed between them before this 
happening. But Sophia was uncompromising in her 
demand for strict justice. 

" If I am guilty, I am unworthy of you," she told him. 
" If innocent, you are unworthy of me." 

There was no more to be said. A consistory court was 
assembled to divorce them. But since with the best 
intentions there was no faintest evidence of her adultery, 
this court had to be content to pronounce the divorce 
upon the ground of her desertion. 

She protested against the iniquity of this. But she 



The Tragedy of Herrenhausen 271 

protested in vain. She was carried off into the grim 
captivity of a castle on the Ahlen, to drag out in that 
melancholy duress another thirty-two years of life. 

Her death took place in November of 1726. And the 
story runs that on her death-bed she delivered to a person 
of trust a letter to her sometime husband, now King 
George I. of England. Seven months later, as King 
George was on his way to his beloved Hanover, that letter 
was placed in his carriage as it crossed the frontier into 
Germany. It contained Sophia's dying declaration of 
innocence, and her solemn summons to King George to 
stand by her side before the judgment-seat of Heaven 
within a year, and there make answer in her presence for 
the wrongs he had done her, for her blighted life and her 
miserable death. 

King George's answer to that summons was immediate. 
The reading of that letter brought on the apoplectic seizure 
of which he died in his carriage next day — the 9th of June, 
1727 — on the road to Osnabriick. 



XL The Tyrannicide 

Charlotte Corday and Jean Paul Marat 



i8 



XL The Tyrannicide 

TYRANNICIDE was the term applied to her deed by 
Adam Lux, her lover in the sublimest and most 
spiritual sense of the word — for he never so much as spoke 
to her, and she never so much as knew of his existence. 

The sudden spiritual passion which inflamed him when he 
beheld her in the tumbril on her way to the scaffold is a 
fitting corollary to her action. She in her way and he 
in his were alike subHme ; her tranquil martyrdom upon 
the altar of RepubHcanism and his exultant martyrdom 
upon the altar of Love were alike splendidly futile. 

It is surely the strangest love-story enshrined in history. 
It has its pathos, yet leaves no regrets behind, for there is 
no m.ight-have-been which death had thwarted. Because 
she died, he loved her ; because he loved her, he died. 
That is all, but for the details which I am now to give you. 

The convent-bred Marie Charlotte Corday d'Armont 
was the daughter of a landless squire of Normandy, a 
member of the chetive noblesse, a man of gentle birth, whose 
sadly reduced fortune may have predisposed him against 
the law of entail or primogeniture — the prime cause of the 
inequality out of which were sprung so many of the evils 
that afflicted France. Like many of his order and condition 
he was among the earliest converts to Republicanism — 
the pure, ideal repubUcanism, demanding constitutional 
government of the people by the people, holding monarchical 
and aristocratic rule an effete and parasitic anachronism, 

275 18* 



276 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

From M. de Corday Charlotte absorbed the lofty Re- 
publican doctrines to which anon she was to sacrifice her 
life; and she rejoiced when the hour of awakening sounded 
and the children of France rose up and snapped the fetters 
in which they had been trammelled for centuries by an 
insolent minority of their fellow-countrymen. 

In the early violence of the revolution she thought she 
saw a transient phase — horrible, but inevitable in the dread 
convulsion of that awakening. Soon this would pass, 
and the sane, ideal government of her dreams would 
follow — must follow, since among the people's elected 
representatives was a goodly number of unselfish, single- 
minded men of her father's class of life ; men of breeding 
and education, impelled by a lofty altruistic patriotism ; 
men who gradually came to form a party presently to be 
known as the Girondins. 

But the formation of one party argues the formation of 
at least another. And this other in the National Assembly 
was that of the Jacobins, less pure of motive, less restrained 
in deed, a party in which stood pre-eminent such ruthless, 
uncompromising men as Robespierre, Danton, — and Marat. 

Where the Girondins stood for Republicanism, the 
Jacobins stood for Anarchy. War was declared between 
the tvvo. The Girondins arraigned Marat and Robespierre 
for complicity in the September massacres, and thereby 
precipitated their own fall. The triumphant acquittal of 
Marat was the prelude to the ruin of the Girondins, and 
the proscription of twenty-nine deputies followed at once 
as the first step. These fled into the country, hoping to 
raise an army that should yet save France, and several 
of the fugitives made their way to Caen. Thence by 
pamphlets and oratory they laboured to arouse true 



The Tyrannicide 277 

Republican enthusiasm. They were gifted, able men, 
eloquent speakers and skilled writers, and they might have 
succeeded but that in Paris sat another man no less gifted, 
and with surer knowledge of the temper of the proletariat, 
tirelessly wielding a vitriolic pen, skilled in the art of 
inflaming the passions of the mob. 

That man was Jean Paul Marat, sometime medical 
practitioner, sometime professor of literature, a graduate 
of the Scottish University of St. Andrews, author of some 
scientific and many sociological works, inveterate pam- 
phleteer and revolutionary journalist, proprietor and 
editor of UAmi du Peuple, and idol of the Parisian rabble, 
who had bestowed upon him the name borne by his 
gazette, so that he was known as The People's Friend. 

Such was the foe of the Girondins, and of the pure, 
altruistic, Utopian Republicanism for which they stood; 
and whilst he lived and laboured, their own endeavours 
to influence the people were all in vain. From his vile 
lodging in the Rue de PEcole de Medecine in Paris he span 
with his clever, wicked pen a web that paralysed their 
high endeavours and threatened finally to choke them. 

He was not alone, of course. He was one of the dread 
triumvirate in which Danton and Robespierre were his 
associates. But to the Girondins he appeared by far the 
most formidable and ruthless and implacable of the 
three, whilst to Charlotte Corday— the friend and asso- 
ciate now of the proscribed Girondins who had sought 
refuge in Caen — he loomed so vast and terrible as to 
eclipse his associates entirely. To her young mind, 
inflamed with enthusiasm for the religion of Liberty as 
preached by the Girondins, Marat was a loathly, dan- 
gerous heresiarch, threatening to corrupt that sublime 



278 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

new faith with false, anarchical doctrine, and to replace 
the tyranny that had been overthrown by a tyranny more 
odious still. 

She witnessed in Caen the failure of the Girondin 
attempt to raise an army with which to deliver Paris 
from the foul clutches of the Jacobins. An anguished 
spectator of this failure, she saw in it a sign that Liberty 
was being strangled at its birth. On the lips of her 
friends the Girondins she caught again the name of Marat, 
the murderer of Liberty ; and, brooding, she reached a 
conclusion embodied in a phrase of a letter which she 
wrote about that time. 

" As long as Marat lives there will never be any safety 
for the friends of law and humanity." 

From that negative conclusion to its positive, logical 
equivalent it was but a step. That step she took. She 
may have considered awhile the proposition thus pre- 
sented to her, or resolve may have come to her with 
realization. She understood that a great sacrifice was 
necessary ; that who undertook to rid France of that 
unclean monster must go prepared for self-immolation. 
She counted the cost calmly and soberly — for calm and 
sober was now her every act. 

She made her packages, and set out one morning by 
the Paris coach from Caen, leaving a note for her father, 
in which she had written : 

" I am going to England, because I do not believe that it will be possible 
lor a long time to live happily and tranquilly in France. On leaving I 
post this letter to you. When you receive it I shall no longer be here. 
Heaven denied U6 the happiness of living together, as it has denied ui 
other happinesses. May it show itself more clement to our country. 
Good-bye, dear Father. Embrace my dster for me, and do not forget 



The Tyrannicide 279 



That was all. The fiction that she was going to 
England was intended to save him pain. For she had so 
laid her plans that her identity should remain undisclosed 
She would seek Marat in the very Hall of the Convention, 
and publicly slay him in his seat. Thus Paris should 
behold Nemesis overtaking the false Republican in the 
very Assembly which he corrupted, and anon should 
adduce a moral from the spectacle of the monster's death. 
For herself she counted upon instant destruction at the 
hands of the furious spectators. Thus, thinking to die 
unidentified, she trusted that her father, hearing, as all 
France must hear, the great tidings that Marat was dead, 
would never connect her with the instrument of Fate 
shattered by the fury of the mob. 

You realize, then, how great and how terrible was the 
purpose of this maid of twenty-five, who so demurely took 
her seat in the Paris diligence on that July morning of 
the Year 2 of the Republic — 1793, old style. She was 
becomingly dressed in brown cloth, a lace fichu folded 
across her well-developed breast, a conical hat above her 
light brown hair. She was of a good height and finely 
proportioned, and her carriage as full of dignity as of 
grace. Her skin was of such white loveliness that a 
contemporary compares it with the lily. Like Athene, 
she was grey-eyed, and, like Athene, noble-featured, 
the oval of her face squaring a little at the chin, in which 
there was a cleft. Calm was her habit, calm her slow 
moving eyes, calm and deliberate her movements, and 
calm the mind reflected in all this. 

And as the heavy diligence trundles out of Caen and 
takes the open country and the Paris road, not even the 
thought of the errand upon which she goes, of her death- 



28o The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

dealing and death-receiving mission, can shake that 
normal calm. Here is no wild exaltation, no hysterical 
obedience to hotly-conceived impulse. Here is purpose, 
as cold as it is lofty, to liberate France and pay with her 
life for the privilege of doing so. 

That lover of hers, whom we are presently to see, has 
compared her ineptly with Joan of Arc, that other maid 
of France. But Joan moved with pomp in a gorgeous 
pageantry, amid acclamations, sustained by the heady 
wine of combat and of enthusiasm openly indulged, towards 
a goal of triumph. Charlotte travelled quietly in the stuffy 
diligence with the quiet conviction that her days were 
numbered. 

So normal did she appear to her travelling com- 
panions, that one among them, with an eye for beauty^ 
pestered her with amorous attentions, and actually pro- 
posed marriage to her before the coach had rolled over the 
bridge of Neuilly into Paris two days later. 

She repaired to the Providence Inn in the Rue des 
Vleux Augustins, where she engaged a room on the first 
floor, and then she set out in quest of the Deputy Duperret. 
She had a letter of introduction to him from the Girondin 
Barbaroux, with whom she had been on friendly terms 
at Caen. Duperret was to assist her to obtain an inter- 
view with the Minister of the Interior. She had under- 
taken to see the latter on the subject of certain papers 
relating to the affairs of a nun of Caen, an old convent 
friend of her own, and she was in haste to discharge this 
errand, so as to be free for the great task upon which she 
was come. 

From inquiries that she made, she learnt at once that 
Marat was ill, and confined to his house. This rendered 



The Tyrannicide 281 

necessary a change of plans, and the relinquishing of her 
project of affording him a spectacular death in the crowded 
hail of the Convention. 

The next day, which was Friday, she devoted to further- 
ing the business of her friend the nun. On Saturday 
morning she rose early, and by six o'clock she was w^alking 
in the cool gardens of the Palais Royal, considering with 
that almost unnatural calm of hers the ways and means 
of accomplishing her purpose in the unexpected conditions 
that she found. 

Towards eight o'clock, when Paris was awakening to 
the business of the day and taking down its shutters, 
she entered a cutler's shop in the Palais Royal, and bought 
for two francs a stout kitchen knife in a shagreen case. 
She then returned to her hotel to breakfast, and afterwards, 
dressed in her brown travelling-gown and conical hat, she 
went forth again, and, hailing a hackney carriage, drove 
to Marat's house in the Rue de I'Ecole de Medecine. 

But admittance to that squaHd dweUing was denied 
her. The Citizen Marat was ill, she was told, and could 
receive no visitors. It was Simonne Everard, the 
triumvir's mistress — Plater to be know^n as the Widow 
Marat — who barred her ingress with this message. 

Checked, she drove back to the Providence Inn and 
wrote a letter to the triumvir : 

" Paris, 13th July, Year 2 of the Republic. 
" Citizen, — I have arrived from Caen. Your love for 
your country leads me to assume that you will be anxious 
to hear of the unfortunate events which are taking place 
in that part of the Republic. I shall therefore call upon 
you towards one o'clock. Have the kindness to receive 



282 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

me, and accord me a moment's audience. I shall put you 
in the way of rendering a great service to France. 

" Marie Corday." 



Having dispatched that letter to Marat, she sat until 
late afternoon waiting vainly for an answer. Despairing 
at last of receiving any, she wrote a second note, more 
peremptory in tone : 

# 

" I wrote to you this morning, Marat. Have you 
received my letter ? May I hope for a moment's audience ? 
If you have received my letter, I hope you will not refuse 
me, considering the importance of the matter. It should 
suffice for you that I am very unfortunate to give me the 
right to your protection." 

Having changed into a grey-striped dimity gown — you 
observe this further manifestation of a calm so complete 
that it admits of no departure from the ordinary habits 
of life — she goes forth to deliver in person this second 
letter, the knife concealed in the folds of the muslin fichu 
crossed high upon her breast. 

In a mean, brick-paved, ill-lighted, and almost unfur- 
nished room of that house in the Rue de I'Ecole de 
Medecine, the People's Friend is seated in a bath. It is 
no instinct of cleanliness he is obeying, for in all France 
there is no man more filthy in his person and his habits 
than this triumvir. His bath is medicated. The horrible, 
loathsome disease that corrodes his flesh demands these 
long immersions to quiet the gnawing pains which distract 
his active, restless mind. In these baths he can benumb 
the torment of the body with which he is encumbered. 



The Tyrannicide 283 



For Marat is an intellect, and nothing more — leastways, 
nothing more that matters. What else there is to him of 
trunk and limbs and organs he has neglected until it has 
all fallen into decay. His very lack of personal clean- 
liness, the squalor in which he lives, the insufficient sleep 
which he allows himself, his habit of careless feeding at 
irregular intervals, all have their source in his contempt 
for the physical part of him. This talented man of varied 
attainments, accomplished linguist, skilled physician, 
able naturalist and profound psychologist, lives in his 
intellect alone, impatient of all physical interruptions. 
If he consents to these immersions, if he spends whole days 
seated in this medicated bath, it is solely because it 
quenches or cools the fires that are devouring him, and 
thus permits him to bend his mind to the work that is 
his life. But his long-suffering body is avenging upon 
the mind the neglect to which it has been submitted. The 
morbid condition of the former is being communicated to 
the latter, whence results that disconcerting admixture 
of cold, cynical cruelty and exalted sensibility which 
marked his nature in the closing )'^ars of his life. 

In his bath, then, sat the People's Friend on that July 
evening, immersed to the hips, his head swathed in a 
filthy turban, his emaciated body cased in a sleeveless 
waistcoat. He is fifty years of age, dying of consumption 
and other things, so that, did Charlotte but know it, there 
is no need to murder him. Disease and Death have marked 
him for their own, and grow impatient. 

A board covering the bath served him for writing-table ; 
an empty wooden box at his side bore an inkstand, some 
pens, sheets of paper, and two or three copies of UAmi 
du Peuple. There was no sound in the room but the 



284 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

scratch, and splutter of his quili. He was writing dili- 
gently, revising and editing a proof of the forthcoming 
issue of his paper. 

A noise of voices raised in the outer room invaded the 
quiet in which he was at work, and gradually penetrated 
his absorption, until it disturbed and irritated him. He 
moved restlessly in his bath, listened a moment, then, 
with intent to make an end of the interruption, he raised 
a hoarse, croaking voice to inquire what mJght be taking 
place. 

The door opened, and Simonne, his mistress and house- 
hold drudge, entered the room. She was fully twenty 
years younger than himself, and under the slattern appear- 
ance which life in that house had imposed upon her there 
were vestiges of a certain comeliness. 

" There is a young woman here from Caen, who demands 
insistently to see you upon a matter of national import- 
ance." 

The dull eyes kindle at the mention of Caen ; interest 
quickens in that leaden-hued countenance. Was it not 
in Caen that those old foes of his, the Girondins, were 
stirring up rebellion r 

" She says," Simonne continued, " that she wrote a 
letter to you this morning, and she brings you a second 
note herself. I have told her that you will not receive 
anyone, and . . ." 

" Give me the note," he snapped. Setting down his 
pen, he thrust out an unclean paw to snatch the folded 
sheet from Simonne's hand. He spread it, and read, his 
bloodless lips compressed, his eyes narrowing to slits. 

" Let her in," he commanded sharply, and Simonne 
obeyed him without more ado. She admitted Charlotte, 



The Tyrannicide 285 



and left them alone together — the avenger and her victim. 
For a moment each regarded the other. Marat beheld 
a handsome young woman, elegantly attired. But these 
things had no interest for the People's Friend. What to 
him was woman and the lure of beauty ? Charlotte beheld 
a feeble man of a repulsive hideousness, and was full 
satisfied, for in this outward loathsomeness she imagined 
a confirmation of the vileness of the mind she was come 
to blot out. 

Then Marat spoke. " So you are from Caen, child ? " 
he said. " And what is doing in Caen that makes you so 
anxious to see me ? " 
She approached him. 

'* Rebellion is stirring there, Citizen Marat." 
" Rebellion, ha ! " It was a sound between a laugh 
and a croak. " Tell me what deputies are sheltered in 
Caen. Come, child, their names." He took up and 
dipped his quill, and drew a sheet of paper towards him. 
She approached still nearer ; she came to stand close 
beside him, erect and calm. She recited the names of her 
friends, the Girondins, whilst hunched there in his bath 
his pen scratched briskly. 

" So many for the guillotine," he snarled, when it was 
done. 

But whilst he was writing, she had drawn the knife 
from her fichu, and as he uttered those words of doom 
to others his own doom descended upon him in a lightning 
stroke. Straight driven by that strong young arm, the 
long, stout blade was buried to its black hilt in his breast. 
He looked at her with eyes in which there was a faint 
surprise as he sank back. Then he raised his voice for 
the last time. 



286 The Historical Nights' Efitertaijtment 

" Help, chere amie / Help ! " he cried, and was for ever 
silent. 

The hand still grasping the pen trailed on the ground 
beside the bath at the end of his long, emaciated arm. 
His body sank sideways in the same direction, the head 
lolling nervelessly upon his right shoulder, whilst from 
the great rent in his breast the blood gushed forth, embruing 
the water of his bath, trickling to the brick-paved floor, 
bespattering — symbolically almost — a copy of UAmi 
du Peuple, the journal to which he had devoted so much of 
his uneasy life. 

In answer to that cry of his came now Simonne in haste. 
A glance sufficed to reveal to her the horrible event, andj 
like a tigress, she sprang upon the unresisting slayer, 
seizing her by the head, and calling loudly the while for 
assistance. Came instantly from the anteroom Jeanne, 
the old cook, the portress of the house, and Laurent Basse, 
a folder of Marat's paper ; and now Charlotte found herself 
confronted by four maddened, vociferous beings, at whose 
hands she may well have expected to receive the death for 
which she was prepared. 

Laurent, indeed, snatched up a chair, and felled her by 
a blow of it across her head. He would, no doubt, have 
proceeded in his fury to have battered her to death, but 
for the arrival of gens d'armes and the police commissioner 
of the district, who took her in their protecting charge. 

The soul of Paris was convulsed by the tragedy when it 
became known. All night terror and confusion were 
abroad. All night the revolutionary rabble, in angry 
grief, surged about and kept watch upon the house wherein 
the People's Friend lay dead. 

That night, and for *wo days and nights thereafter, 



The Tyrannicide 287 

Charlotte Corday lay in the Prison of the Abbaye, sup- 
porting with fortitude the indignities that for a woman 
were almost inseparable from revolutionary incarceration. 
She preserved throughout her imperturbable calm, based 
now upon a state of mind content in the contemplation 
of accomplished purpose, duty done. She had saved 
France, she believed ; saved Liberty, by slaying the man 
who would have strangled it. In that illusion she was 
content. Her own life was a small price to pay for the 
splendid achievement. 

Some of her time of waiting she spent in writing letters 
to her friends, in which tranquilly and sanely she dwelt 
upon what she had done, expounding fully the motives 
that had impelled her, dwelling upon the details of the 
execution, and of all that had followed. Among the 
letters written by her during those " days of the prepara- 
tion of peace "—as she calls that period, dating in such 
terms a long epistle to Barbaroux — was one to the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety, in which she begs that a miniature- 
painter may be sent to her to paint her portrait, so that 
she may leave this token of remembrance to her friends. 
It is only in this, as the end approaches, that we see in her 
conduct any thought for her own self, any suggestion that 
she is anything more than an instrument in the hands 
of Fate. 

On the 15th, at eight o'clock in the morning, her 
trial began before the Revolutionary Tribunal. A murmur 
ran through the hall as she appeared in her gown of grey- 
striped dimity, composed and calm — always calm. 

The trial opened with the examination of witnesses 
into that of the cutler, who had sold her the knife, she 
broke impatiently. 



288 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 



** These details are a waste of time. It is I who killed 
Marat." 

The audience gasped, and rumbled ominously. Mon- 
tane turned to examine her. 

" What was the object of your visit to Paris ? " he 
asks. 

" To kill Marat." 

" What motives induced you to this horrible deed ? " 

** His msinj crimes." 

** Of v^hat crimes do you accuse him ? " 

**' That he instigated the massacre of September ; that 
he kept alive the fires of civil war, so that he might be 
elected dictator ; that he sought to infringe upon the 
sovereignty of the People by causing the arrest and im- 
prisonment of the deputies to the Convention on May 

31st." 

" What proof have you of this ? " 

" The future will afford the proof. Marat hid his designs 
behind a mask of patriotism." 

Montane shifted the ground of his interrogatory. 

'' Who were your accomplices in this atrocious act ? " 

*' I have none." 

Montane shook his head. " You cannot convince any- 
one that a person of your age and sex could have con- 
ceived such a crime unless instigated by some person or 
persons whom you are unwilling to name." 

Charlotte almost smiled. " That shows but a poor 
knowledge of the human heart. It is easier to carry out 
such a project upon the strength of one's own hatred than 
upon that of others." And then, raising her voice, she 
proclaimed : *' I killed one man to save a hundred thousand ; 
I killed a villain to save innocents ; I killed a savage wild- 



The Tyrannicide 289 



beast to give repose to France. I was a Republican before 
the Revolution. I never lacked for energy." 

What more was there to say ? Her guilt was com- 
pletely established. Her fearless self-possession was not 
to be ruffled. Yet Fouquier-Tinvilie, the dread prosecutor, 
made the attempt. Beholding her so virginal and fair 
and brave, feeling perhaps that the Tribunal had not had 
the best of it, he sought with a handful of revolutionary 
filth to restore the balance. He rose slowly, his ferrety 
eyes upon her. -,-j 

" How many children have you had ? " he rasped, 
sardonic, his tone a slur, an insult. 

Faintly her cheeks crimsoned. But her voice was com- 
posed, disdainful, as she answered coldly : 

" Have I not stated that I am not married I " 

A leer, a dry laugh, a shrug from Tinville to complete 
the impression he sought to convey, and he sat down 
again. 

It was the turn of Chauveau de la Garde, the advocate 
instructed to defend her. But what defence was possible I 
And Chauveau had been intimidated. He had received 
a note from the jury ordering him to remain silent, 
another from the President bidding him declare her mad. 

Yet Chauveau took a middle course. His brief speech 
is admirable ; it satisfied his self-respect, without 
derogating from his client. It uttered the whole truth. 

" The prisoner," he said, " confesses with calm the 
horrible crime she has committed ; she confesses with 
calm its premeditation ; she confesses its most dreadful 
details ; in short, she confesses everything, and does 
not seek to justify herself. That, citizens of the jury, 
is her^whole defence.^ This imperturbable calm, this utter 

19 



290 The Historical Nights* Entertainment 

abnegation of self^ which displays no remorse even in the 
very presence of deaths are contrary to nature. They 
can only be explained by the excitement of political 
fanaticism which armed her hand. It is for you^ citizens 
of the jury, to judge what weight that moral consideration 
should have in the scales of justice/' 

The jury voted her guilty, and Tmville rose to demand 
the full sentence of the law. 

It was the end. She was removed to the Conciergerie, 
the antechamber of the guillotine. A constitutional 
priest was sent to her, but she dismissed him with thanks, 
not requiring his ministrations. She preferred the painter 
Hauer, who had received the Revolutionary Tribunal's 
permission to paint her portrait in accordance with her 
request. And during the sitting, which lasted half an hour, 
she conversed with him quietly on ordinary topics, the 
tranquillity of her spirit unruffled by any fear of the death 
that was so swiftly approaching. 

The door opened, and Sanson, the public executioner, 
came in. He carried the red smock worn by those con- 
victed of assassination. She showed no dismay ; no 
more, indeed, than a faint surprise that the time spent 
with Hauer should have gone so quickly. She begged 
for a few moments in which to write a note, and, the 
request being granted, acquitted herself briskly of that 
task; then announcing herself ready, she removed her 
cap that Sanson might cut her luxuriant hair. Yet first, 
taking his scissors, she herself cut off a lock and gave it 
to Hauer for remembrance. When Sanson would have 
bound her hands, she begged that she might be allowed 
to wear gloves, as her wrists were bruised and cut by the 
cord with which she had been pinioned in Marat's house. 



The Tyrannicide 291 

He answered that she might do so if she wished, but that 
it was unnecessary, as he could bind her without causing 
pain. 

" To be sure," she said, " those others had not your 
experience," and she proffered her bare wrists to his cord 
without further demur, *^ If this toilet of death is per- 
formed by rude hands," she commented, ^* at least it 
leads to immortality." 

She mounted the tumbril awaiting in the prison yard, 
and, disdaining the chair offered her by Sanson, remained 
standing, to show herself dauntless to the mob and brave 
its rage. And tierce was that rage, indeed. So densely 
thronged were the streets that the tumbril proceeded at 
a crawl, and the people surging about the cart screamed 
death and insult at the doomed woman. It took two 
hours to reach the Place de la Revolution, and meanwhile 
a terrific summer thunderstorm had broken over Paris, 
and a torrential rain had descended upon the densely 
packed streets. Charlotte's garments were soaked through 
and through, so that her red smock, becom.ing glued now to 
her body and fitting her like a skin, threw into relief its 
sculptural beauty, whilst a reflection of the vivid crimson 
of the garment faintly tinged her cheeks, and thus 
heightened her appearance of complete composure. 

And it is now in the Rue St. Honord that at long last 
we reach the opening of our tragic love-story. 

A tall, slim, fair young man, named ildam Lux— sent 
to Paris by the city of Mayence as Deputy Extraordinary 
to the National Convention — was standing there in the 
howling press of spectators. He was an accomplished, 
learned young gentleman, doctor at once of philosophy 
and of medicine, although in the latter capacity he had 



292 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

never practised owing to an extreme sensibility of nature, 
which rendered anatomical work repugnant to him. He 
was a man of a rather exalted imagination, unhappily 
married — the not uncommon fate of such delicate tem- 
peraments — and now living apart from his wife. He had 
heard, as all Paris had heard, every detail of the affair, 
and of the trial, and he waited there, curious to see this 
woman, with whose deed he was secretly in sympathy. 

The tumbril slowly approached, the groans and execra- 
tions swelled up around him, and at last he beheld her — 
beautiful, serene, full of life, a still smile upon her lips. 
For a long moment he gazed upon her, standing as if 
stricken into stone. Then heedless of those about him., 
he bared his head, and thus silently saluted and paid 
hom_age to her. She did not see him^. He had not thought 
that she would. He saluted her as the devout salute the 
unresponsive image of a saint. The tum.bril crawled 
on. He turned his head, and followed her with his eyes 
for awhile ; then, driving his elbows into the ribs of those 
about him., he clove him.self a passage through the throng* 
and so followed, bare-headed now, with fixed gaze, a m_an 
entranced. 

He was at the foot of the scaffold when her head fell. 
To the last he had seen that noble countenance preserve 
its im-m_utable calm., and in the hush that followed the 
sibilant fall of the great knife his voice suddenly rang 
out. 

" She is greater than Brutus ! " was his cry ; and he 
added, addressing those who stared at him in stupefaction : 
"It were beautiful to have died with her ! " 

He was suffered to depart unmolested. Chiefly, perhaps, 
because at that moment the attention of the crowd was 



The Tyrannicide 293 



upon the executioner's attendant, who, in holding up 
Charlotte's truncated head, slapped the cheek with his 
hand. The story runs that the dead face reddened under 
the blow. Scientists of the day disputed over this, some 
arguing from it a proof that consciousness does not at 
once depart the brain upon decapitation. 

That night, while Paris slept, its walls were secretly 
placarded with copies of a eulogy of Charlotte Corday, the 
martyr of Republicanism, the deliverer of France, in which 
occurs the comparison with Joan of Arc, that other great 
heroine of France. This was the work of Adam Lux, 
He made no secret of it. The vision of her had so wrought 
upon the imagination of this susceptible dreamer, had fired 
his spirit with such enthusiasm, that he was utterly reck 
less in yielding to his emotions, in expressing the phrenetic, 
imm.aterial love with which in her last moments of life 
she had inspired him. 

Two days after her execution he issued a long m.anifesto, 
in which he urged the purity of her m.otive as the fullest 
justification of her act, placed her on the level of Brutus 
and Cato, and passionately demanded for her the honour 
and veneration of posterity. It is in this m^anifesto that 
he applies euphemistically to her deed the term " tyran- 
nicide." That document he boldly signed with his own 
name, realizing that he would pay for that temerity with 
his life. 

He was arrested on the 24th of July — exactly a week 
from the day on which he had seen her die. He had 
powerful friends, and they exerted themselves to obtain 
for him a promise of pardon and release if he would 
publicly retract what he had written. But he laughed the 
proposal to scorn, ardently resolved to follow into death 



294 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

the woman who had aroused the hopeless, immaterial 
love that made his present torment. 

Still his friends strove for him. His trial was put off. 
A doctor named Wetekind was found to testify that Adam 
Lux was mad, that the sight of Charlotte Corday had 
turned his head. He wrote a paper on this plea, recom- 
mending that clemency be shown to the young doctor on 
the score of his affliction, and that he should be sent to a 
hospital or to America. Adam Lux was angry when he 
heard of this, and protested indignantly against the 
allegations of Dr. Wetekind. He wrote to the Journal 
de la Montagney which published his declaration on the 
26th of vSeptember, to the effect that he was not m_ad 
enough to desire to live, and that his anxiety to m.eet 
death half-way was a crowning proof of his sanity. 

He languished on in the prison of La Force until the 
loth of October, when at last he was brought to trial. He 
stood it joyously, in a mood of exultation at his approach- 
ing deliverance. He assured the court that he did not 
fear the guillotine, and that all ignominy had been rem.oved 
from such a death by the pure blood of Charlotte. 

They sentenced him to death, and he thanked them for 
the boon. 

'' Forgive me, sublime Charlotte," he exclaimed, "if 
I should find it impossible to exhibit at the last the courage 
and gentleness that were yours. I glory in your supe- 
riority, for it is right that the adored should be above the 
adorer." 

Yet his courage did not fail him. Far from it, indeed ; 
if hers had been a mood of gentle calm, his was one of 
ecstatic exaltation. At five o'clock that same afternoon 
he stepped from the tumbril under the gaunt shadow of the 



The Tyrannicide 295 



guillotine. He turned to the people, his eyes bright, a 
flush on his cheeks. 

^' At last I am to have the happiness of dying for Char- 
lotte," he told thenij and mounted the scaffold with the 
eager step of the bridegroom on his way to the nuptial 
altar. 



PRINTED AT 

THE CHAPEL RIYER PRES? 

KINGSTON, SURREV. 



The Tyrannicide 289 



beast to give repose to France. I was a Republican before 
the Revolution. I never lacked for energy." 

What more was there to say ? Her guilt was com- 
pletely established. Her fearless self-possession was not 
to be ruffled. Yet Fouquier-Tinvilie, the dread prosecutor, 
made the attempt. Beholding her so virginal and fair 
and brave, feeling perhaps that the Tribunal had not had 
the best of it, he sought with a handful of revolutionary 
filth to restore the balance. He rose slowly, his ferrety 
eyes upon her. ; ^ 

'' How many children have you had ? " he rasped, 
sardonic, his tone a slur, an insult. 

Faintly her cheeks crimsoned. But her voice was com- 
posed, disdainful, as she answered coldly : 

" Have I not stated that I am not married ? " 
A leer, a dry laugh, a shrug from Tinville to complete 
the impression he sought to convey, and he sat down 
again. 

It was the turn of Chauveau de la Garde, the advocate 
instructed to defend her. But what defence was possible ? 
And Chauveau had been intimidated. He had received 
a note from the jury ordering him to remain silent, 
another from the President bidding him declare her mad. 

Yet Chauveau took a middle course. His brief speech 
is admirable ; it satisfied his self-respect, without 
derogating from his client. It uttered the whole truth. 

" The prisoner," he said, " confesses with calm the 
horrible crime she has committed ; she confesses with 
calm its premeditation ; she confesses its most dreadful 
details ; in short, she confesses everything, and does 
not seek to justify herself. That, citizens of the jury, 
is her whole defence. This imperturbable calm, this utter 

19 



290 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

'' ' " III I II ■■- n .i..i iiii grgr .. I II I I if iii M ■ I -r^ .. . iiiii - i-m i i n 

abnegation of self, which displays no remorse even in the 
very presence of death, are contrary to nature. They 
can only be explained by the excitement of political 
fanaticism which armed her hand. It is for you, citizens 
of the jury, to judge what weight that moral consideration 
should have in the scales of justice,'' 

The jury voted her guilty, and TinviUe rose to demand 
the full sentence of the law. 

It was the end. She was removed to the Conciergerie, 
the antechamber of the guillotine, A constitutional 
priest was sent to her, but she dismissed him with thanks, 
not requiring his ministrations. She preferred the painter 
Hauer, who had received the Revolutionary Tribunal's 
permission to paint her portrait in accordance with her 
request. And during the sitting, which lasted half an hour, 
she conversed with him quietly on ordinary topics, the 
tranquillity of her spirit unruffled by any fear of the death 
that was so swiftly approaching. 

The door opened, and Sanson, the public executioner, 
came in. He carried the red smock worn by those con- 
victed of assassination. She showed no dismay ; no 
more, indeed, than a faint surprise that the time spent 
with Hauer should have gone so quickly. She begged 
for a few moments in which to write a note, and, the 
request being granted, acquitted herself briskly of that 
task; then announcing herself ready, she removed her 
cap that Sanson might cut her luxuriant hair. Yet first, 
taking his scissors, she herself cut off a lock and gave it 
to Hauer for remembrance. When Sanson would have 
bound her hands, she begged that she might be allowed 
to wear gloves, as her wrists were bruised and cut by the 
cord with which she had been pinioned in Marat's house. 



The Tyrannicide 291 



He answered that she might do so if she wished, but that 
it was unnecessary, as he could bind her without causing 
pain. 

" To be sure," she said, ^' those others had not your 
experience," and she proffered her bare wrists to his cord 
without further demur. '^ If this toilet of death is per- 
formed by rude hands," she commented, " at least it 
leads to immortality." 

She mounted the tumbril awaiting in the prison yard, 
and, disdaining the chair offered her by Sanson, remained 
standing, to show herself dauntless to the m.ob and brave 
its rage. And fierce was that rage, indeed. So densely 
thronged were the streets that the tumbril proceeded at 
a crawl, and the people surging about the cart screamed 
death and insult at the doomed woman. It took two 
hours to reach the Place de la Revolution, and meanwhile 
a terrific summer thunderstorm had broken over Paris, 
and a torrential rain had descended upon the densely 
packed streets, Charlotte's garm_ents were soaked through 
and through, so that her red smock, becoming glued now to 
her body and fitting her like a skin, threw into relief its 
sculptural beauty, whilst a reflection of the vivid crimson 
of the garment faintly tinged her cheeks, and thus 
heightened her appearance of com_plete com.posure. 

And it is now in the Rue St. Honore that at long last 
we reach the opening of our tragic love-story. 

A tall, slim, fair young man, named Adam Lux — sent 
to Paris by the city of Mayence as Deputy Extraordinary 
to the National Convention — was standing there in the 
howling press of spectators. He was an accomplished, 
learned young gentleman, doctor at once of philosophy 
and of medicine, although in the latter capacity he had 



292 The Historical Nights' Entertainment 

never practised owing to an extreme sensibility of nature, 
which rendered anatomical work repugnant to him. He 
was a man of a rather exalted imagination, unhappily 
married — the not uncommon fate of such delicate tem- 
peraments — and now living apart from his wife. He had 
heard, as all Paris had heard, every detail of the affair, 
and of the trial, and he waited there, curious to see this 
woman, with whose deed he was secretly in sympathy. 

The tumbril slowly approached, the groans and execra- 
tions swelled up around him, and at last he beheld her — 
beautiful, serene, full of life, a still smile upon her lips. 
For a long moment he gazed upon her, standing as if 
stricken into stone. Then heedless of those about him, 
he bared his head, and thus silently saluted and paid 
homage to her. She did not see him. He had not thought 
that she would. He saluted her as the devout salute the 
unresponsive im.age of a saint. The tum.bril crawled 
on. He turned his head, and followed her with his eyes 
for awhile ; then, driving his elbows into the ribs of those 
about him, he clove himself a passage through the throng? 
and so followed, bare-headed now, with fixed gaze, a man 
entranced. 

He was at the foot of the scaffold when her head fell. 
To the last he had seen that noble countenance preserve 
its immutable calm, and in the hush that followed the 
sibilant fall of the great knife his voice suddenly rang 
out. 

'^ She is greater than Brutus ! " was his cry ; and he 
added, addressing those who stared at him in stupefaction : 
" It were beautiful to have died with her ! " 

He was suffered to depart unmolested. Chiefly, perhaps, 
because at that moment the attention of the crowd was 



The Tyrannicide 293 



upon the executioner's attendant, who, in holding up 
Charlotte's truncated head, slapped the cheek with his 
hand. The story runs that the dead face reddened under 
the blow. Scientists of the day disputed over this, some 
arguing from it a proof that consciousness does not at 
once depart the brain upon decapitation. 

That night, while Paris slept, its walls were secretly 
placarded with copies of a eulogy of Charlotte Corday, the 
martyr of Republicanism, the deliverer of France, in which 
occurs the comparison with Joan of Arc, that other great 
heroine of France. This was the work of Adam Lux. 
He made no secret of it. The vision of her had so wrought 
upon the imagination of this susceptible dreamer, had fired 
his spirit with such enthusiasm, that he was utterly reck 
less in yielding to his emotions, in expressing the phrenetic, 
immaterial love with which in her last moments of life 
she had inspired him. 

Two days after her execution he issued a long m.anifesto, 
in which he urged the purity of her motive as the fullest 
justification of her act, placed her on the level of Brutus 
and Cato, and passionately demanded for her the honour 
and veneration of posterity. It is in this manifesto that 
he applies euphemistically to her deed the term " tyran- 
nicide." That document he boldly signed with his own 
name, realizing that he would pay for that temerity with 
his life. 

He was arrested on the 24th of July— exactly a week 
from the day on which he had seen her die. He had 
powerful friends, and they exerted them.selves to obtain 
for him a promise of pardon and release if he would 
publicly retract what he had written. But he laughed the 
proposal to scorn, ardently resolved to follow into death 



294 T'he Historical Nights' Entertainment 

the woman who had aroused the hopeless, immaterial 
love that made his present torm.ent. 

Still his friends strove for him. His trial was put off. 
A doctor named Wetekind was found to testify that Adam 
Lux was mad, that the sight of Charlotte Corday had 
turned his head. He wrote a paper on this plea, recom- 
mending that clemency be shown to the young doctor on 
the score of his affliction, and that he should be sent to a 
hospital or to America. Adam Lux was angry when he 
heard of this, and protested indignantly against the 
allegations of Dr. Wetekind. He wrote to the Journal 
de la Montagne^ which published his declaration on the 
26th of September, to the effect that he was not mad 
enough to desire to live, and that his anxiety to meet 
death half-way was a crowning proof of his sanity. 

He languished on in the prison of La Force until the 
loth of October, when at last he was brought to trial. He 
stood it joyously, in a mood of exultation at his approach- 
ing deliverance. He assured the court that he did not 
fear the guillotine, and that all ignominy had been rem.oved 
from such a death by the pure blood of Charlotte. 

They sentenced him to death, and he thanked them for 
the boon. 

" Forgive me, sublim.e Charlotte,'' he exclaimed, '' if 
I should find it impossible to exhibit at the last the courage 
and gentleness that were yours. I glory in your supe- 
riority, for it is right that the adored should be above the 
adorer.'" 

Yet his courage did not fail him. Far from it, indeed ; 
if hers had been a mood of gentle calm, his was one of 
ecstatic exaltation. At five o'clock that same afternoon 
he stepped from the tumbril under the gaunt shadow of the 



The Tyrannicide 295 



guillotine. He turned to the people, his eyes bright, a 
flush on his cheeks, 

" At last I am to have the happiness of dying for Char- 
lotte," he told them, and mounted the scaffold with the 
eager step of the bridegroom on his way to the nuptial 
altar. 



PBINTED AT 

THE CHAPEL RIVER PPvESS, 

KINGSTON', SURREV. 



Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. 



are pleased to give the following particulars of many important 
New Books for the Autumn of 1919, and also a splendid list 
of New Novels, which, as will be seen by the undermentioned 
names, are almost all by the Leading Authors. 

W. B. MAXWELL 

ETHEL M. DELL 

STEPHEN McKENNA 

E. F. BENSON 

KATHLYN RHODES 

H, de VERB STACPOOLE 

JEROME K. JEROME 

GILBERT FRANKAU 

BAR0NES5 VON HUTTEN 

MRS. ALFRED 5IDQWICK 

RAFAEL SABATINI 

UNA L. SILBERRAD 

UPTON SINCLAIR 

ELINOR MORDAUNT 

PIERRE BENOIT 

O. B. BURGIN 

KEBLE HOWARD 

PEGGY WEBLINQ 

DOROTA FLATAU 

ISABEL C. CLARKE 

H. B. SOMERVILLE 

K. PROTHERO LEWIS 

M. P. WILLCOCKS 

CURTIS YORKE 

CECILIA HILL 

AUTHOR OF "THE POINTING MAN;" 

MARIAN M. BOWER 

LEON M, LION and 

MRS. HORACE TREMLETT 



Hutchinson's New Novels, 6/9 Net. 
A Man and his Leeson 

By W. B. MAXWELL 

Author of " The Devil's Garden," etc. 

" All Life is a Lesson " is the sub-title of this story, and 
the hero, Bryan Vaile, is forced to learn a good deal in a com- 
paratively short time. He passes through various phases 
of social experiences and of love, and the interest of the novel 
centres in Vaile's love for two women. 

The book is full of up-to-date scenes and various back- 
grounds, but the steady purpose of the writer — a progress 
towards higher things — runs through the whole. 

The Rubber Princess 

By G. B. BURGiN 

Author of " A Gentle Despot," etc. 

A new novel in Mr. Burgin's most delightful style, happy, 
optimistic, and ending charmingly. The scene is laid in the 
beautiful English countryside where Sir Hilary has his man- 
sion. Beryl Dennison and her selfish father. Sir Hilary, and 
his beloved wife, and Jimmy Carmichael, not forgetting 
" Blinder " and her lovers, are people we are better and 
happier for meeting. 

Green Pastures By una l. silberrad 

Author of 
" The Mystery of Barnard Hanson," " The Lyndwood Affair." 

A novel which breathes an atmosphere of chivalry and 
courtesy and daintiness. The tale belongs to the period of 
the Beaux and Dandies, and all the fragrance and charm of 
a characteristically EngHsh setting cling about the figures of 
Mr. Scarlet and Damavis, and Tobiah and Mistress Breadlehane. 

A novel which is bound to bring the author many new 
admirers. 

The Sleeping Partner 

By M. P. WILLCOCKS 

Author of "The Eyes of the Blind," ''Change," etc. 
Both in scene and atmosphere, an entirely new departure of 
Miss Willcocks'. A story with a most original plot, told in such 
a delightful manner that the readers' interest is held and kept in 
suspense until the very end— a psychological surprise. 

% 



Hwichinson's New Novels* 6/9 Net, 
Sonia Married 

By STEPHEN McKENNA 

Author of " Sonia," " Midas & Son," etc. 

Charming as ever, Sonia tackles the difficult questions 
of matrimony with all her usual courage and originality. 
Whether she is skimming merrily on the surface of Life, or 
diving into its tragic depths, she is equally irresistible, and 
gives Mr. McKenna full opportunity for a merciless analysis 
of the heart of modern woman. 
The best novel Mr. McKenna has written. 

Robin Linnet 

By E. F. BENSON 

Author of " Up and Down," " Dodo," etc. 

A story with all the charm of style, witty dialogue and 
able characterisation which have always marked this author. 
Young Robin Linnet's life at Cambridge, with his friends and 
his " dons " with which the story opens, is an excellent piece 
of descriptive work. A story of which the interest steadily 
increases and which combines all the elements of a first-class 
novel. 

As God Made Her 

By HELEN PROTHERO LEWIS 

Author of " Love and the Whirlwind," etc. 

Rachel Higgins receives a legacy. Her method of 
spending it is most novel and interesting. The story goes 
with a dramatic swing and every scene interests and amuses. 
A good story in the best sense of the word. 

Bait By DOROTA FLATAU 

Author of " Yellow English " (nth edition). 

An uncommon story by the author of last year's great 
success. Dimpsey Dorcas Durden is a more than up-to-date 
heroine, and her life among the smart set is the theme of a 
thoroughly smart novel replete with witty epigrams and 
catchy sayings. A distinctive book. 



Hutchinson's New Novels 6/9 Net. 

The Peculiar Mafor 

By KEBLE HOWARD 

Author of " The Smiths of Surbiton," etc. 

Asked how he came to write a novel so far away from his 
usual hne as " The Peculiar Major," Mr. Keble Howard 
replied : 

" I didn't write it. The Major wrote it, and he didn't so 
much write it as set down in the form of a story the amazing 
things that happened to him. How could he help it ? The 
Great War, a world in agony, a crowned villain, an astounding 
discovery, London, love, laughter — why anybody could 
knock up a yarn with such ingredients as those I 

" As for my share, I just put in a comma or two, and got 
my friend, Mr. H. G. Wells, to give the enterprise his blessing." 

The Man's Story 

By H. B. SOMERViLLE 

Author of 
" Ashes of Vengeance," " The Mark of Vraye," etc. 

A fascinating story by this well-known author with an 
interest which grows as the pages are turned. " The Man " 
and his wife, Le Sars and the actress, the characters who 
act and react on one another are drawn with a fidelity and a 
knowledge which make the story vivid. A novel that will 
appeal to all, especially to feminine readers. 

Happy House 

By BARONESS VON HUTTEN 

Author of " Sharrow " (48th Thousand), etc, 

" Happy House " in Hampstead is a delightful sunny 
place in a garden, and the scene of a story full of dramatic 
incident. 

Old Mrs. Mellish, the chief character of the book, is a 
vivid creation, the utter unexpectedness of her final action is 
the distinctive feature of this new novel by a well-known 
writer. 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net. 
The Beach of Dreams 

By H. de VERE STACPOOLE 

Author of -, 

" The Blue Lagoon," " The Pearl Fishers," etc. 

Mr, Stacpoole has no rivals in his own particular field, 
and " The Beach of Dreams " will certainly increase his popu- 
larity. It rivals in interest his famous stories, " The Blue 
Lagoon," and " The Pearl Fishers," and may be said to show 
even greater power and psychological insight. His descriptive 
writing is as vivid as ever ; we hear the roar of the " Wooley " 
and of the breakers on the cliffs of Kerguelen, we see Cleo de 
Bronsart and Raft huddled together on a ledge, with the 
hungry waves below and the mighty cliffs above, and we 
thrill to Raft's fight with Chang and Cleo's intervention, which 
turns the day. A most exciting story with a great surprise at 
the end. 

Konigsmark 

By PIERRE BENOIT 

The publishers believe that they can congratulate both the 
public and themselves on the appearance of this most remark- 
able novel, which has already taken France by storm. At 
heart the reading public still demand a good plot, and the plot 
of Konigsmark will be readily recognized as the work of 
genius. But the novel is far more than a most enthralling 
story. It introduces characters which, for truth and person- 
ality, stand out in a different class from the usual puppets 
of fiction, and, above all, the book is distinguished by that 
human touch, that ail-pervading sense of humour and charm 
of style which cannot fail to make a deep and lasting impression. 

Julian 

By ISABEL C. CLARKE 

Author of " The Children of Eve," " The Elstones," etc. 

A new novel by the author of " The Elstones " and one 
written with all the power and insight displayed in that story. 
The heroine, Eunice Dampier, has a strange and eventful 
career ; the development of her character under the care of 
the Parmeters is sketched with an able pen. Eunice is a 
real person with human faults and failings, as well as human 
charm and attraction. 

5 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net. 

The Further Side of the Door 

By the author of "The Pointing Man" 

The peculiar charm and abihty to create an atmosphere 
of mystery which mark the author of " The Pointing Man " 
are very evident in this new novel. It is a well woven tale 
of uncommon distinction and quality. Richard Ansell's 
story is one that may be the fate of many a man in these days. 
A story full of appeal and v/ith a delightful current of romance. 

Odds and Ends By b. m. croker 

Author of " Blue China," etc. 

Mrs. Croker's signature is a hall-mark of excellence of 
workmanship, and that excellence is maintained in this delight- 
ful collection of her stories, some grave, some gay, and all 
showing the master hand. 

The reader will be delighted with the variety of subject 
and mood and the finish of style. While the majorit}^ of the 
scenes are laid in her beloved Ireland, India furnishes the 
background for some of the most amusing as well as tragic 
incidents. A book that every admirer of Mrs. Croker will 
welcome with enthusiasm. 

The Chinese Puzzle 

By MARIAN BOWER and LEON M. LION 

The Novel of the famous Play 

This remarkable story will make as strong an appeal in 
novel form as it has done as a play. 

There is tension throughout and clever characterization. 
All the persons in the tale are as vivid as on the stage, and 
the style is distinguished. 

The Level Track By ourtis yorke 

Author of 
" Disentangled," " Joyce," " She Who Meant Well," etc. 
The Romance of Prudence Royton, who, from a humdrum, 
Cinderella-like existence, is suddenly thrown into the conflict- 
ing currents of wealth and matrimony. The story is character- 
istic of Curtis Yorke in its direct, vivid and arresting style, 
and will be one more favourite added to the long list of this 
popv.l.ir wiitcr's popular books. 

6 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net. 

FIRST EDITION OF 60.000 COPIES 

The Lamp in the Desert 

By ETHEL M. DELL 

Author of " The Hundredth Chance," " The Bars 
of Iron/' etc. 

A new novel by this most popular author is always an 
event. The scene of this powerful story is laid in the Indian 
hill country, and the story is replete with incident and re- 
markable characterisation. Stella Denzil and her lover will 
take their places in the gallery of favourites which Miss Dell 
has given her admirers. 

My Trifling Adventures 

By MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK 

Author of " The Inner Shrine," " Anne Lulworth," etc. 

The innumerable admirers of this favourite novelist will 
welcome with dehght the latest novel from her pen. Mrs. 
Sidgwick has a descriptive charm and a power of visualisation 
which never fail. She has brought all her powers to bear on 
this story of a young girl in strange and not altogether pleasant 
surroundings ; it is written with humour and a deep under- 
standing of human nature which will appeal to all who like 
to read about Life as it really is. 

Jimmy Higgins 

By UPTON SINCLAIR 

Author of " The Jungle," etc. 

This is the story of Jimmy Higgins, socialist, worker and 
sometime soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces. 
It is a character study written with all Upton Sinclair's power 
and virility. The pictures he paints are drawn with a sweeping 
brush and in crude colours that make the lights and shadows 
distinct and impressive. " Jimmy Higgins " is a stor^^ that 
is sure to arouse great interest among the reading public all 
over the world. It is strong with the strength of the untamed 
spirit. 

7 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net 
Platonic Peter 

By MRS. HORACE TREMLETT 

Author of 
" Giddy Mrs. Goodyer," " Birds of a Feather," etc. 
Judy Bettington was the Mayoress of Midboro', a dazzling 
beauty in a Paris hat. How she adopted Peter Barham as a 
friend, whether he was really so platonic as he should have 
been, and what Thomas the Mayor had to say about it, is all 
told in the particularly entertaining, light-hearted style which 
Mrs. Tremlett has made quite her own. A most exhilarating 
story, with a smile on every page. 

The Scent Shop 

By PEGGY WEBLING 

Author of " In Our Street," etc. 

In her ninth and latest novel Miss Webling tells a quaint 
story of London life. Ghe uses her knowledge of the little- 
known forms of fine labour, in this case the old and exquisite 
art of scent-making, to form a picturesque background for a 
delightful romance. The characters are all entertaining, 
and are described in the author's most attractive manner. 

Peter Jackson^ Cigar Merchant 

By GILBERT FRANKAU 

Author of " One of Them," etc. 
A romance of married life, a romance which resembles 
the life of many a couple. Strong and frank, a remarkable 
novel, is the opinion of a balanced reader. It is a story which 
will especially appeal to all who have passed the first bloom 
of married life and see how Peter and his wife found them- 
selves and each other. A novel that will have a lasting success. 

Stone Walls By gecilia hill 

Author of " The Citadel," " Wings Triumphant." 
A novel that should enlarge this author's circle of readers. 
Both style and treatment bear out the promises made in the 
former books. The heroine Petra is drawn with the same 
" sure touch of affection and experience " (to quote the 
Times critic on the author's last novel), which characterizes 
the work of this clever writer. 

8 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net. 

Nearly a Million of this Favourite Author's Novels have been 
already sold. 

The City of Palms 

By KATHLYN RHODES 

Author of 
" The Lure of the Desert," " The Desert Dreamers," etc. 
The action of the story passes in an oasis in the desert of 
Northern Africa, known to the Arabs as "The City of Palms." 
The chief characters are a young Enghshman, who has settled 
down in the oasis, his young wife, and a man of hybrid 
nationality, half Pole, half Turk, whose ill-will the English girl 
is unfortunate enough to incur. The threads of these three 
lives become entangled, and the story if concerned chiefi}^ with 
the intrigue set in motion by the Turk, in which the English- 
man runs the risk of losing both wife and land. 

A Villa in the South 

By DUNCAN SWAN 

Author of 
" Molyneux of May fair," " A Country House Comedy," etc. 

A delightfully entertaining book full of movement and 
telling the story of charming and likeable people, A novel 
wTitten in Mr. Swan's most attractive style, with the Villa 
Beauregarde as a fascinating background for an amusing 
society comed3^ 

Mr. Swan's talent is well-known to all lovers of good 
literature ; this novel is written with a lightness of touch and 
charm of style which are certain to enhance his reputation. 

The Little Soul 

By ELINOR MORDAUNT 

Author of 
" The Garden of Contentment," " A Ship of Solace," etc. 

Another novel that will delight all admirers of Miss Mor- 
daunt's great gifts. Charles Hoyland is a remarkable 
character, drawn with great power and force. Philip McCabe 
and Diana Clayton, the foils to this driving power, are most 
charming and attractive people, whose careers will be followed 
with intense interest. The story ends on the note of hope, 
never absent from any picture of real life. 



Hutchinson's New Novels. 6/9 Net. 

The Historical Nights' 
Entertainment Series I. 

By RAFAEL SABATINI 

Author of ''The Snare," "The Banner of the Bull," etc. 
In speaking of this series, Mr. Sabatini says, " I have set 
myself the task of reconstructing in the fullest possible detail and 
with all the colour available from surviving records a group of 
more or less famous events. I have selected for my purpose those 
which were in themselves bizarre and resulting from the interplay 
of human passions, and whilst relating each of these events in the 
form of a story, I compel that story scrupulously to follow the 
recorded facts and draw on my imagination merely, as one might, 
to fill in the outlines which history leaves grey." 

The Historical Nights* 
Entertainment Series IL 

By RAFAEL SABATINI 

Author of " The Snare," " The Banner of the Bull," etc. 

*' I have tried to reconstruct, in the fullest possible details, 
the most bizarre and famous events which have resulted from the 
interplay ot human passions in history. How nearly I have 
approached success in this task — how far I have fallen short — my 
readers will discern." R. S, 

All Roads Lead to Calvary 

By JEROME K. JEROME 

Author of " Paul Kelver," " Two Men in a Boat," etc. 

" Her face has always been a woman's fortune. If she's 
going to become a fighter, it will have to be her weapon." 
Joan Allway finds this a truth though at times a bitter one, 
for she determines to fight for the right as she sees it, against 
the forces which strive to make life easy. Joan meets life 
with a high courage which nothing is able to damp, but the 
solution of her problems must be found in the pages of Mr. 
Jerome's fascinating novel. 

10 



IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS 

The Dover Patrol — 
1915. 1916 ® 1917 

By Admiral SIR REGINALD BACON, 

K.C.B,, K.C.V.O., D.S.O 

With over one hundred illustrations, maps and plans. 
2 handsome vohimes, 348. net. 
The history of the Dover Patrol is one of the outstanding 
romances of the war, and Adrairal Sir Reginald Bacon's forth- 
coming book sheds new light on the varied operations of the naval 
forces which he commanded for nearly three years. 

The occupation and fortification of the Belgian coast by the 
enemy, changed dramatically the strategical situation, throwing 
upon the Dover Patrol heavier responsibilities than Nelson, or any 
admiral who commanded these narrow waters in previous wars, 
had had to bear. The enemy was in a position to threaten the 
left flank of the Allied armies besides menacing the enormous 
volume of sea traffic passing through the straits. The Dover 
Patrol consequently had to deny the use of these waters to the 
Germans, established on the Belgian Coast, while at the same 
time, rendering them safe for British shipping, and above all that, 
it had to protect the left flank of the Allied armies and safeguard 
the stream of storeships and transports passing across the Channel 
within seventy miles of the fortified bases of the enemy. 

Sir Reginald Bacon in this inportant book, Vv^hich is very fully 
illustrated with charts and photographs, gives a detailed account 
of the work of the Dover Patrol, with its ships manned, not only 
by the Navy, but drawing their personnel from all classes and 
composed of monitors, destroyers, submarines, drifters, trawlers, 
mine sweepers, motor boats and motor launches. He describes the 
ceaseless watch and ward, maintained for so long off the Belgian 
coast which was patrolled daily within sight of Ostend and Zee- 
brugge ; a feat unparalleled in the war for hardihood and daring 
in view of the danger from mines and submarines. The methods 
whereby this work was accomplished and the precautions taken 
against loss form an interesting portion of the narrative. Admiral 
Bacon also gives some account of the landing of heavy guns at 
Dunkirk — great engineering achievements — and of the many 
bombardments carried out on the enemy's positions from the sea. 

The book will be regarded as the crowning vindication of the 
naval aptitudes of the British people, for the Dover Patrol was in 
the main an improvised force created to meet a great national 
peril. 

If the Germans had dominated the Straits of Dover in the early 
months of the war, who could then have prophesied that the Allies 
would have triumphed ? 

II 



IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS 

Westminster Cathedral 

and Its Architect By w. de uhopital 

With mimerous Illustrations from Mr. Bentley's 

drawings including coloured plates, plans and 

reproductions from photographs. 

In 2 large handsome volumes, Crown 4-to, cloth gilt and gilt top, 
£3 38. Od. net. 

The history of Westminster Cathedral, and of its architect, the late 
John Francis Bentley, will undoubtedly form one of the principal 
publishing features of the autumn season. Westminster Cathedjal is 
acknowledged to be among tht most important buildings of modern times, 
and as the Chief Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church in the British 
Empire it has a further importance of the first mark. Bentley's own life, 
and the story of how the great Byzantine cathedral grew into being from 
Cardinal Manning's first proposals, and how it fell to his successor. 
Cardinal Vaughan, to initiate and carry out the work, has been told by 
the architect's daughter, Mrs. de I'Hopital, who has made full use of her 
father's papers. An important feature of the book is the illustrations, 
which comprise some full page plates in colour from Mr. Bentley's water- 
colour drawings, and numerous illustrations in line and from photographs, 
besides many plans. 

The Madman By kahlil gibran 

" The William Blake of the Twentieth Century."— i^ocim. 

With three illustrations, 5s. net. 
** The Madman " introduces to England the work of the greatest 
poet of Arabia. The man of whom the great Rodin said " The wurld 
should expect much from this poet painter of Lebanon. He is the 
William Blake of the Twentieth Century." 

Kahlil Gibran is as much the poet of the Near East as Tagore is of 
the East. In the opinion of many critics he is a far greater poet than 
Tagore. Among the millions who read Arabic, Gibran — poet, painter, 
dramatist and critic — is considered the outstanding genius of the epoch. 

4-lst Year of Issue. 

The Year's Art 1920 

Compiled by A. C. R. CARTER 

A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of Painting, 
Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, and to Schools of De^ign, which 
have occurred during the year 1919, together with information respecting 
^he events of 1920. 

Over 600 pages with illustrations 

Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. net. 

i2 



IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS 
The Peace Conference 

By Dr. E. J. DILLON 

Author of " The Eclipse of Russia " etc. 
In one large handsome volume, 2 Is. net. 

Dr. Dillon has been for so many years in the closest touch with 
the inmost circles of European politics that his opportunities for 
collecting material for the work which bears this comprehensive 
title have been unrivalled. His two large volumes cover all the 
essential points of the vast conference and form a work which should 
be a permanent history of the events of these world shaking months. 
Dr. Dillon gives personal impressions of the leading delegates 
with special reference to their individual fitness to conduct their 
parts in the negotiation for a world peace settlement. He gives 
a vast amount of hitherto unpublished information on the growth 
and development of the causes of dissension among the Associated 
Powers and the methods taken to arrange a settlement of these. 
He deals with the sincerity of the various national delegations in 
discussing the terms of a peace on an ideal basis as distinct from a 
peace on the old bases where national claims were paramount. He 
has much of supreme interest to say about the Italian situation, and 
the claims of America as regards the Monroe doctrine and as regards 
her German-American population. He discusses the probability 
of the permanence of the League of Nations, and touches with 
deft certainty on the indications and possibiHties of the Japanese 
and Chinese questions. A most valuable and interesting part of 
the book is the discussion of the " Fourteen " points as a basis 
for Peace, and their effect on the imperfectly developed and the 
undeveloped races and an examination of them from the politico- 
religious point of view. Other interesting chapters deal with the 
sources of information of which Dr. Dillon was able to make use, 
and the reception accorded this special information by the high 
parties in Paris. Dr. Dillon also has much of surpassing interest 
to tell of the inner history of the Peace Conference and the influences 
which affected the speed and trend of the settlement. 

It does not seem too much to claim that this work is unique 
in its source and in the variety of reliable information which is 
gathered into its covers. It should be studied by every thinking 
reader who wishes to know what really happened at Paris during 
those fateful months when the peace of the world was being settled, 
we hope for all time. 

13 



IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS 
Memories of an Old Etonian— 

18604912 By GEORGE GREVILLE 

Author of " Society Recollections in Paris and Vienna," and " More Society Recollections." 

In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 168. net 

With numerous illustrations 

In this fascinating volume the author has chiefly related 
his recollections of Eton fifty years ago — the Eton of Dr. 
Hornby, and has added yet another volume to the chronicles 
of the great school. 

It is not easy to describe the varied contents of this 
book ; it suffices, however, to say that it contains much 
besides these early reminiscences. Mr. Greville supplies the 
reader from his apparently inexhaustible memories with 
abundant anecdotes and society sketches during the latter 
half of Queen Victoria's reign. 

My Chinese Days 

By GULIELMA F. ALSOP 

With 8 I Illustrations on art paper in one handsome volume, 
10s. 6d. net. 
With its background of Oriental colours, customs and mystery this 
is a fascinating volume of vignettes of Chinese life by a woman physician. 
The author obtained the material for her sketches either from her own 
observations during her four years' work as a practising physician or she 
heard of them direct. She gives intimate pictures of the domestic life of 
the Chinese of all classes, and tells of her many romantic, tragic and 
humorous experiences. 

Fields of Victory 

By MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

In crown Svo, with illustrations, coloured map and 
large folding statistical chart, 78. 6d. net. 

This is a book of paramount importance and of topical interest. It 
is a survey of the British Armies in the field and of Britain's part in the 
future Peace of the World. The author has visited the scenes of the great 
conflict, and gives us from the Fields of Victory and from personal con- 
tact with the leading persons in the great drama, and prominent British 
and Allied representatives, who have put all available material and infor- 
mation at her disposal, an abiding and inspiring picture of Great Britain's 
achievements in the past and of her aims and ideals for the future. 

14 



IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS 

Gardens of Celebrities and 
Celebrated Gardens 

25s. net. By JESSIE MACGREGOR 

In one large handsome volume, with 20 beautiful coloured 
plates and exquisite pencil drawings by the Author 

A book that is likely to become a classic. The beautiful Water 
Colour paintings and delicate pencil drawings of some of the most famous 
Gardens in and around London, add greatly to the interest of the letter- 
press. Special permission was granted by Queen Alexandra to Miss 
Macgregor to make sketches in the precincts of Marlborough House. 
Miss Macgregor, who was a favourite pupil of Sir Frederick Leighton, has 
been a regular Exhibit®r at the Royal Academy. The text gives a most 
exhaustive survey of London Gardens and their History, from the days of 
the Norman Conquest. Both by those who know and love their London 
and by many Americans and overseas Britons this unique book, with its 
fascinating accounts of Hogarth House, Walpole House, the Chelsea 
Physicke Garden, and many other historical backgrounds will be read 
with unfailing delight. 

The book is a veritable treasure house of Garden Lore. 

Sappho • A Rendering and an Authority 

By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 

Half cloth gilt, Ss. 6d. net. 

In this delightful volume Mr. Stacpoole has used all the charm of 
language which marks him as a descriptive writer of such high order. 
The music of his diction rings in every line of this translation, which is 
vibrant with the spirit of the original. 

The Ruined Cities of Northern 
Africa By ragnar sturzenbecker 

With about 60 illustrations from photographs printed 
on art paper. 

Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 16«, net. 
Dr. Sturzenbecker's name is well known throughout Europe as one of 
the leading authorities on the ancient civilizations of North Africa, which 
he describes. The excavations have, on the whole, yielded greater 
treasures than Pompeii and Herculaneum, for they have concerned towns 
of great size and importance which for centuries have lain hidden undei 
their sandy covering. 

IS 



Two New Volumes of 
HUTCHINSON'S NATURE LIBRARY. 

A new series of books on Natural History and other 

kindred subjects, written by experts in popular Ians:uage, 

but with strict accuracy In every detail. 

Each volume in large crown 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, 7s.Gfi„nettfully illustrated 

Bird Behaviour By frank finn, f.z.s. 

Author of "Birds of the Countryside," etc. 

With 44 illustrations, on art paper. 
Mr. Frank Finn is well known as one of our chief authori- 
ties on all that concerns bird-life. Those who are familiar 
with his books are aware that he has made it a practice only 
to write from personal observation. " Bird Behaviour," 
the subject of his new book, has never before received 
serious attention, but it is one in which Mr. Finn is 
thoroughly at home. Some of the points treated in the 
volume relate to the locomotion of birds, their nutrition and 
the reasons for their choice of particular foods — the care of 
the young, nests, migration, senses of smell and sight. 

Insect Artisans and their Work 

By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 

Author of "Messmates," "Toadstools and Mushrooms of the Countryside," etc. 

With 54 illustrations , on art Paper. 

From quite early days in the study of Entomology it has 

been generally known that certain Insects in the perfection 

of their industry might almost be accepted as the prototypes 

of the human artificer. Thus, the wasp was taken as the 

first paper-maker, a certain wild bee as a mason, and another 

bee as a carpenter. 

OTHER VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED 
PleSSmateS S a Book of strange Companionships 

By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 
Author of "The Romance of Wild Flowers," "Shell Life," etc. 
With 55 Illustrations from photosfraphs, on art paper 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

The Infancy of Animals =="">"'«•■" 

With 64 plates en art paper and numerous illustrations In the text 

The Courtship of Animals 

By W. P. PYCRAFT, A.L S., F.Z.S. 

Zoological Department, Briti«h Museum. 
Author of " A History of Birds," "Story of Reptile Life," etc, 
With numerous Illustrations on art paper 
I6 



RECENT SUCCESSFUL BOOKS 
In the Morning of Time 

By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 

Author of " Red Fox," etc. 

With nine illustrations. In crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. net. 

The stories of this author deahng with the adventures 
of animals, of which " The Red Fox " is, perhaps, the best 
known, have for a long time enjoyed great popularity. In 
the present work, Mr. Roberts gives us a story of a man in 
primaeval times, and he introduces descriptions of the strange 
scenery and monstrous fauna of the time. 

Indo-China and its 
Primitive People 

By CAPTAIN HENRY BAUDESSON 

With 60 illustrations from pliotographs by 
the Author. 

In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 16s. net. 
In the course of his travels Captain Baudesson carefully 
observed the curious customs of the Moi and Chams, the un- 
cultured people of Indo-China, among whom he dwelt for 
many years. The story of his travels is presented in vivid 
language and is full of local and picturesque colour. Tigers 
and elephants were frequently encountered during the journey 
of the mission, and many members of the expedition were 
wounded by the poisoned arrows of the natives, while jungle 
fever and malaria made havoc among them. 

Old Days in 
Bohemian London 

Recollections of Clement Scott 

By MRS. CLEMENT SCOTT 

In demy 8vo. cloth gilt, with 16 illustrations , lOs, ©<#- net. 

These recollections are something more than memoirs of one 
who probably knew his Bohemian London better than any living 
contemporary. Mr. Clement Scott was for many years Dramatic 
Critic to "The Daily Telegraph," and in this remarkable book 
one finds references to and anecdotes, hitheito unpublished, of 
most of the notabilities both Protean and those who have trodden 
the bigger stage of Life during the past twenty-five years 

17 



RECENT SUCCESSFUL BOOKS 

Secrets of the Bosphorus Isfnon 

Revealed by Ambassador MORGENTHAU 

CONSTANTINOPLE 1913-1916 

With 19 Illustrations on art paper. 

Published at the popular price of 8s. QA. net. 

It is impossible to overrate the importance of this book. 

It contains amazing revelations concerning many obscure 

phases of the vorld-war. A book that holds its place and 

continues to be m great demand. 

The Game of Diploinacy |3ftio„ 

By a EUROPEAN DIPLOMAT 
With unique portraits of Wlustrlous Personages 

In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 10s. 6d> net. 
Baron de Schelking, the author, was First Secretary at 
the Russian Embassy in Berhn for a number of years. His 
memoirs will rank as a historical document of the first import- 
ance. 

Indian Studies 2nd Edition 

By GENERAL SIR O'MOORE CREAGH, 

V.C, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. 
Former Commander-in-Chief in India 
In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 16s. net. 
A brilliant and exhaustive survey of India. 
The fruit of forty years' experience in India by a former 
Commander-in-Chief. 

One of Them S A Novel in Verse 

By GILBERT FRANKAU 
In Cr. 8vo, with coloured Wrapper, Ga. Sd. net, 

God and Tommy Atkins 4th Edition 

By Dp. ALEXANDER IRVINE 

Author of " My Lady of the Chimney Corner," etc. 

3s. 6d. net. 

18 



Recent Successful Novels. 



Each in cr. 5vo., cloth, 6s. 9d. net, 

THE ROLL CALL By Arnold Bennett 

2nd Edition 

THE GREAT INTERRUPTION W. B. Maxwell 

2nd Edition 

UNDER BLUE SKIES 

2nd Edition 

BLUE CHINA 

2nd Edition 

THE OBSTINATE LADY 

2nd Edition 



H. de Vere Stacpoole 
B. M. Croker 
W. E. Norris 



WILD YOUTH 
LOOSE ENDS 
A GENTLE DESPOT 
THE ELSTONES 

2nd Edition 

AGAINST THE WINDS 

THE BLOND BEAST 

PAUL'S WIFE 

BIRDS OF A FEATHER Mrs. Horace Tremlett 

LOVE AND THE CRESCENT 

Mrs. A. C. Inchbold 

AN ENGLISH FAMILY Harold Begbie 

3rd Edition 



Sir Gilbert Parker 

Arnold Lunn 

G. B. Burgin 

Isabel C. Clarke 

Kate Jordan 

Robert A. Bennet 

Douglas Sladen 



19 



3/6 Net Series 

OF 

FAMOUS NOVELS 

Each in crown 8vo, printed on good paper, cloth bound with most attractive 
picture Wrapper in colours. 



NEW EDITIONS OF 



Ethel M. Dell's Great Novels 

The Hundredth Chance 

Now published for the first time in cheap form 

The Bars of Iron 

(222nd Thousand) 



The Story of an African Farm 

Bf olive schreiner 

A Classic which has delighted Hundreds of Thousands of 
readers and will prove as acceptable to millions more. Olive 
Schreiner's masterpiece is ever new, ever interesting-. It is the 
acknowledged classic of South Africa. One of the greatest novels 
ever written. 

Queen of the Rushes 

By ALLEN RAINE 

Over Two Million copies of this famous author's books have 
already been sold. " Allen R.aine " is the hall mark of all that is 
pure and wholesome in literature. This novel deals with her 
beloved Wales, of which she is at once the prophet and novelist. 

The Relentless Desert 

By KATHLYN RHODES 

A novel of thrilling interest and intrigue by one of the most 
popular of modern novelists whose books are always in great 
demand. A worthy edition of a book which will have a widely 
extended field in its new form. 

20 



Hutckinson's 2/- Net Novels 

NEW VOLUMES AND NEW EDITIONS 
FOR AUTUMN 1919 

Each volume bound, and with a most attractive pictorial wrapper 



YELLOW ENGLISH 

AUNT JANE AND UNCLE JAMES 

THE ARRIVAL OF ANTONY 

PEG THE RAKE 

KITTY THE RAG 

THE BAG OF SAFFRON 

KINGSMEAD 

A SPECKLED BIRD 

THE LOST CONTINENT 

KATE OF KATE HALL 

THE GREAT AGE 

THE INHERITANCE 

MAX 

THE DAWN OF ALL 

A WINNOWING 

LADY Q 

THE MONOMANIAC 

THE SENTIMENTALISTS 

PRISONERS 

ROYAL END 

EYES OF THE BLIND 



Dorota Flatau 

Dorothea Conyers 

Dorothea Conyers 

" Rita " 

" Rita " 

Baroness von Hutteo 

Baroness von Hutten 

Evans Augusta Wilson 

J. C. Cutcliffe Hyne 

Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler 

J. C. Snaith 

Una L. Silberrad 

Mrs. K. C. Thurston 

Robert Hugh Benson 

Robert Hugh Benson 

Mrs. Baillie Saunders 

Emile Zola 

Robert Hugh Benson 

Mary Cholmondeley 

Henry Harland 

W. P Willcocks 



Bound in Paper with Pictorial Cover, t/6 net. 

THE CONFESSIONS OF A LONDON GIRL By Elizabeth York 

Miller 

THE WORLD'S BEST GIRL By Coralie Stanton and 

H^ath Hosken 
21 



HutcKmson's 2/- Movels 

Already Published. 



THE SNARE 

THE BANNER OF THE BULL 

THE TRAMPLING OF THE LILIES 

THE SHAME OF MOTLEY 

ANTHONY WILDING 

THE WOLF 

THE TOLL BAR 

SA.NDS OF GOLD 

SHARROW 

CHIFFON'S MARRIAGE 

ST. ELMO 

THE COMBINED MAZE 

THE FILIBUSTERS 

A DASH FOR A THRONE 

BY RIGHT OF SWORD 

EVELYN'S STORY 

THE THREE BROTHERS 

BY WHAT AUTHORITY 

THE LIGHT INVISIBLE 

TWILIGHT 

THE PRINCESS OF NEW YORK 

THALASSA 

A WELSH SINGER 

THE TEMPLE OF LIES 

THE GREED OF CONQUEST 

THE GOLDEN SWORD 

THE WATCHMAN 

THE LION'S CLAWS 

THE WHITE YAWL 

THE SPY 

THE AVALANCHE 

THE BUILDER 

GABRIELLE JANTHRY 

THE GIRLS AT HIS BILLET • 

MISS MILLIONS' MAID 

THE COURTSHIP OF ROSAMUND FAYRE 
THE STRAYINGS OF SANDY 

THE DEVIL'S GARDEN 

TORN SAILS 

LITTLE BLUE PIGEON 

SHE WHO MEANT WELL 

A QUAKER WOOING 

A KING IN BABYLON 

PERSUASIVE PEGGY -, 

WHEN MICHAEL CAME TO TOWN 
THE SUNLIT HILLS 

22 



By Rafael Sabatini 
Rafael Sabatini 
Rafasl Sabatini 
Rafael Sabatini 
Rafael Sabatini 
J. E. Buckrose 
J. E. BuckrosQ 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Baroness von Hutten 
"Gyp" 

Evans Augusta Wilson 
May Sinclair 
Cutcliffe Hyne 
A. W. Marchmont 
A. W. Marchmont 
Emma Jane Worbosse 
Eden Phillpotts 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Frank Danby 
Cosmo Hamilton 
Mrs. Baillie Reynolds 
Allen Raine 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Surlarid 
J, B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
J. B. Harris-Burland 
Berta Ruck 
Berta Ruck 
Berta Ruck 
Dorothea Conyers 
W. B. Maxwell 
Allen Raine 
A. G. Hales 
Curtis Yorke 
Mrs. Fred Reynolds 
Burton E. Stevenson 
Maravene Thompson 
Madame Albanesi 
Madame Albanesj 



Hutchinson's 2/- Novels already publiskd— continued. 



HEARTS AND SWEETHEARTS By 

POPPIES IN THE CORN 

RICHARD RAYNAL. SOLITARY 

A MIRROR OF SHALLOT 

THE QUEEN'S TRAGEDY 

THE KING'S ACHIEVEMENT 

THE CONVENTIONALISTS -.• 

AN AVERAGE MAN 

THE NECROMANCERS 

LORD OF THE WORLD 

THE COWARD .•• 

COME RACK 1 COME ROPE ! 

LONELINESS 

INITIATION 

ODDSFISHl 

NONE OTHER GODS 

OUR ADVERSARY 

MY LADY FPvIVOL 

THE MIXED DIVISIONS ••. 

THE EXPERIMENTS OF GANYMEDE BUNN 

TWO IMPOSTORS AND TINKER 

IN OLD MADRAS 

THE SERPENT'S TOOTH 

GIVEN IN MARRIAGE 

FROM CLUE TO CAPTURE 

HER MAD MONTH 

MARGUERITE'S WONDERFUL YEAR ... 

TWO IN A TENT-AND JANE 

HILARY ON HER OWN 

PATRICIA PLAYS A PART 

CANDYTUFT— I MEAN VERONICA 

THE THIRD MISS WENDERBY 

AN UNDRESSED HEROINE 

THE VACILLATIONS OF HAZEL 

BY ORDER OF THE CZAR 

ADAMS CLAY 

THE GREEN PATCH •■ 

MAGPIE 

THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE - 

MARIA 

MADEMOISELLE CELESTE 

"GOOD OLD ANNA' 

IN COTTON WOOL 

MRS. THOMPSON 

THE RAGGED MESSENGER 

THE ONE WHO LOOKED ON 

THE GREAT WHITE HAND 

THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL ... 

A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS 

PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT 



Madame Albanesi 
Madame Albanesi 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
Robert Hugh Benson 
M. E. Braddon 
Rosa N. Carey 
R. W. Campbell 
Dorothea Conyers 
Dorothea Conyers 
Mrs. B. M. Croker 
Mrs. B. M. Croker 
Mrs. B. M. Croker 
Dick Donovan 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
Joseph Hatton 
Cosmo Hamilton 
Baroness von Hutten 
Baroness von Hutten 
Baroness von Hutten 
Baroness von Hutten 
A. F. Knight 
Mrs. Belloc Lowndes 
W. B. Maxwell 
W. B. Maxwell 
W. B. Maxwell 
F. F. Montresor 
J. E. Muddock 
Baroness Orczy 
Baroness Orczy 
Baroness Orczy 



as 



Iliiichinscn's 2/- Novels already p^biiskd — continued. 



A TRUE WOMAN 

MEADOWSWEET 

THE LEGION OF HONOUR 

THE MONEY MASTER 

THE GAMBLERS 

CONFESSIONS OF A LADIES* MAN 

THE UNDER SECRETARY 

BY BERWEN BANKS 

THE MAN WHO WON 

THE WAX IMAGE 

THE STRAIGHT RACE 

THE DESERT DREAMERS 

THE WILL OF ALLAH 

SWEET LIFE 

AFTERWARDS 

THE MAKING OF A SOUL 

THE LURE OF THE DESERT 

HALF A TRUTH 

THE BRIDGE OF KISSES 

THE LAD WITH WINGS 

HIS OFFICIAL FIANCEE 

LOVE AT ARMS 

LITANY LANE 

IN BLUE WATERS 

THE PEARL FISHERS 

THE BLUE HORIZON 

THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA 

CORPORAL JACQUES OF THE FOREIGN 

LEGION 

THE REEF OF STARS 

LITTLE COMRADE 

VIRGINIA OF THE RHODESIANS 

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD 

THE WEB OF THE SPIDER 

BOUNDARY HOUSE .. 

THE WIFE'S TRIALS 

THE LADIES' PARADISE 

THE MYSTERIES OF MARSEILLES 



By Baroness Orczy 
Baroness Orczy 
Baroness Orczy 
Sir Gilbert Parker 
William Le Queux 
William Le Quaux 
William Le Queux 
Allen Raine 
Mrs. Baillie Reynolds 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
Kathlyn Rhodes 
"Rita" 
Berta Ruck 
Berta Ruck 
Berta Ruck 
Rafael Sabatini 
Margaret Baillie 

Saunders 
H. de Vere Stacpoole 
H. de Vere Stacpoole 
H. de Vere Stacpoole 
H. de Vere Stacpoole 

H. de Vere Stacpoole 
H. de Vere Stacpoole 
Burton E. Stevenson 
Cynthia Stcckley 
By the Authors of 

"Missing the Tide" 
H. B. Marriott Watson 
Peggy Webling 
Emma Jane Worboise 
Emile Zola 
Emile Zola 



In crown 8vo. with Pictorial Cover, l!3 nei- 



THE STRANGLEHOLD 

MISSING THE TIDE (Pages from the life 
of Margaret Carson) 



By Coralie Stanton and 
Heath Hosken 

By "One who knew her " 



k1 



au34 



24 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




